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I stepped back.

“I knew your work. I had followed Aurora for years. I didn’t need a committee to tell me whether the science was sound.”

He stepped toward me, his hands on my arms. “But familiarity earned my attention, Emilia. It did not earn you the grant.” He continued. “Project Aurora was the most important work in front of me that night. It fit exactly what the residency program was created to support. Yes, I wanted you at Blackwood. But no, that isn’t why Aurora won the grant.”

I believed him. I was glad I asked. I looked down at the conference programs spread across the table and then back at Alexander. He hadn’t brought me here to impress me. He had brought me here because he trusted me with everything he’d spent a lifetime protecting. I gathered them and returned them to the drawer. Then I crossed the room to him. There was nothing left to ask.

He didn’t move as I came. He only watched me, and the closer I got, the more I could see what it was costing him to stay still. His breath had gone shallow. I stopped in front of him and lifted my hand to his face. He caught it and held it there, against his cheek, his eyes closed. I felt him take a breath like a man about to do something daring.

“Emilia.” Just my name. But I knew. I knew before he said the rest, and still my heart climbed into my throat waiting for it. “I love you.”

He said it the way he did everything that mattered, plainly and with no defense. He had explained his whole life to me that morning. This he simply handed over.

“I love you too.”

He pressed his forehead to mine and stayed there, and when he spoke again his voice had lost all its evenness.

“Say it again.”

“I love you, Alexander.”

“Emilia, I need to be inside you. Tell me I can.”

“Yes.”

I brought my lips to his. He kissed me like he’d been waiting years to stop being careful. He walked me backward until the edge of the desk stopped me, lifted me onto it, and sent papers and pencils scattering to the floor.

His hands worked at my clothes, then his own, quick and impatient. Still seated at the edge of the desk, I felt his hand press flat against my back, pulling me chest to chest. There was nothing between us, his skin against mine.

He exhaled against my lips as he entered me. I gasped at the fullness of him, of how much I’d wanted exactly this. I locked my arms around his neck as he began to move, slow at first, then faster, each stroke more desperate than the last. His hand gripped my hip, holding me close against him as he moved deep inside me.

This man, the one who sat in the back of conference halls, who watched me become, who danced with me under chandeliers, was mine. The thought of him as mine was enough.

“Emilia.” His voice broke against my mouth, his rhythm going ragged. “Let me come inside you. Please.”

“Yes,” I gasped. “Yes…”

He followed me over with my name torn out of him, the way he said it like it came from somewhere he’d never let anyone reach. For one long moment there was nothing careful left in him at all. Just the two of us, undone, holding on.

Afterward, he held me close to his chest, his heart going as fast as mine.

Chapter 22

Victoria

I reserved Tuesdays for investment presentations.

Mondays are spent reviewing the science and assessing the financial merits of an investment. My decisions are generally made by Monday evening, but I give the presentation an opportunity to change my mind. Today’s proposal was competent, though its conclusions reached considerably further than the evidence permitted. By the time they finished presenting, I already knew we would not invest. I asked the four questions that mattered, confirmed my assessment, wished the researchers well, and watched them leave.

I was the final approver on every investment the firm made. It was one of the advantages of working privately. I didn’t have to satisfy shareholders or convince a board.

My assistant entered only after the room had emptied. “This arrived while you were in the meeting,” he said, placing a thin folder beside my notes. “It was marked as private.”

I thanked him, waited until the door closed behind him, and opened it. Inside were three photographs. The first showed Blackwood Hall from across the street. The second captured the main entrance just before dusk. They were exactly the sort of thing I had expected to receive, useful only if something had changed. Nothing had.

I set them aside before turning to the third. It had been taken during the Trustees’ Dinner. I stared at it.

Dr. Emilia Rossi did not surprise me. She had not surprised me in years. I had followed Aurora from its earliest published abstracts because I recognized the architecture beneath the work almost immediately. The pathway, the inhibitor design, the underlying logic. None of it appeared from nowhere. Scientific ideas rarely do. They accumulate, layer upon layer, until someone receives credit for reaching the summit while everyone quietly forgets who began climbing first.