Zane Reyes's mornings ran like a precision instrument.
By eight, his Maserati sat in the underground bay of Star Engineering Tower. By eight-oh-five, he was in his office — a high-walled expanse of glass, slate, and chrome overlooking a city he had helped engineer into obedience.
The skyline was a grid of promises; his day a schedule carved into minutes: contracts, investors, and board reviews.
Control was a currency he never squandered.
At eight-thirty, the door chimed. Jordan, tablet in hand, entered first; Lisabeth followed with her mint-scented calm and a folder of neat paper.
"Quick update before nine-thirty," Jordan said, crisp as clockwork.
Zane didn't look up. His eyes stayed on the schematic blueprints flickering on the display. "Proceed."
Lisabeth set the folder down. "Department reports and signatures. Also—IT finalized two audits and signed a new development partnership. External vendor: Silverline Systems."
"Vendor?" His tone was professional, automatic. But a name in the folder snagged his attention like a splinter.
Jordan scrolled. "Custom logistics and supplier-integration platform. Full build, not a patch."
Zane reached for the folder. He read the list: company overview, budgets, timeline. Then one line froze him — the lead developer printed in sober type:
Willow Hale — Silverline Systems.
For a moment, the air thinned. His pulse skipped, then hammered once, twice.
Willow Hale.
In his mind's eye, he saw her again in the low light of the rooftop — the way she'd stepped into that kiss like someone walking through fire she'd lit for someone else.
The soft defiance in her eyes.
The taste that had started as punishment and ended as confession.
He read the name again, slower, as if the letters might change.
Jordan noticed the stillness. "Sir?"
"No." His voice was even. "Continue."
Jordan ran through the rest of the agenda, but the words blurred. Outside, the city was a low electric hum; inside the folder was a different current — a return address he hadn't asked for.
A week.
Only a week since the balcony. Since her mouth had been a map he'd memorized without permission.
Lisabeth closed the file with a soft thud. "The initial meeting between IT and Silverline is being coordinated — likely Friday, conference room 3-B."
"Good." He shut the folder softly. "Copy me on all correspondence. I'll review the architecture myself."
Jordan hesitated. "You'll attend?"
"Yes." The answer came too fast, too measured. "I prefer to evaluate the framework firsthand."
When they left, silence folded around him like dark glass.
He turned to the window, hands in pockets, watching the city breathe.
He had built this empire from the ground up — structures, deals, discipline — and he did not believe in coincidence. Yet here she was again, on paper. Deliberate. Inevitable.
He let himself replay the memory of that night: the taste of her, bright and defiant; the sound of her breath catching when his control broke and he'd pulled her closer.
The warmth of her back beneath his palms.
Everything he'd trained himself to bury had flared.
Amnesia. The word itself had become a ghost between them — a convenient lie meant to protect Miles's reputation and her sanity. He'd told himself it was mercy, a cover, a necessary deception.
But the truth was simpler.
He'd wanted proximity.
He'd wanted her.
He told himself he'd earned that right after years of standing on the periphery — the loyal friend watching from the sidelines while Miles took everything he wanted without ever understanding its worth.
Miles had seen Willow as an ornament; Zane had seen her as architecture — elegant, intricate, capable of holding weight without collapsing.
He remembered every glance across crowded rooms, every conversation that had gone too long, every look that almost said what neither of them could risk.
The night she'd first walked into Miles's orbit, Zane had known she was the variable that would destroy them both — he just hadn't known when.
And now her name sat atop a contract that belonged to him.
The architecture on paper could be folded into any story he liked.
He amended his plan.
If she wanted revenge, he'd become indispensable to it.
If she needed an ally, he'd be the ally.
He would orchestrate a partnership that looked clean in daylight and combustible in the dark — something that could be justified in a boardroom but rewritten in silence.
He smiled without warmth.
Mid-afternoon, reports stacked up like obedient soldiers. Zane ran his thumb along the edge of the Silverline packet.
"Everything all right, sir?" Jordan asked carefully.
"Perfect," Zane said. His voice was calm, his pulse not.
He could already see the meeting unfold: Willow seated across the table, professional, contained, trying not to meet his eyes. He'd be patient. Measured.
He'd steer the conversation just enough — not toward software, but toward her.
Lisabeth returned with a tablet. "You'll lead the meeting, Mr. Reyes?"
"I will." The words hung between instruction and warning. "Set hospitality to formal. I want the room precise but comfortable."
She nodded. "I'll inform IT."
When she left, the quiet pressed close again.
He let out a slow breath and leaned back in his chair, gaze tracing the reflection in the glass — his own face superimposed over the city he ruled. From this height, control felt inevitable. From this height, even chaos looked small. But she—she was the one equation that refused to balance.
He could still feel her presence like static, lingering beneath his skin. The faint scent of her perfume, the heat that had settled in his palms when she leaned in. It was absurd, how memory could feel physical.
He'd spent years mastering logic, only to find emotion more volatile than any market. And Willow Hale was volatility personified.
What he didn't admit — not even to himself — was that he wanted more than to be part of her revenge.
He wanted possession.
He wanted the slow collapse of her defenses to happen under his hands.
He wanted the moment she stopped pretending she didn't still feel something — not for Miles, but for the man who'd always been watching.
Friday was already seared into his calendar.
He pictured the moment vividly — her walking into his boardroom unaware, his voice the first thing she'd hear. The subtle shock that would flash in her eyes, the quick recovery she'd force. She'd straighten, adjust her blazer, pretend indifference. And he would sit there, calm as stone, watching the cracks form one breath at a time.
He almost smiled — not out of cruelty, but anticipation. She would play her part to perfection, unaware she'd stepped into his design. She was a mystery he intended to map, one truth at a time.
He imagined the conference room: glass walls, bright lights, a table long enough to turn every word into a duel.
He'd sit at its head — composed, unthreatening, the picture of professionalism.
And she'd walk in, not knowing she was already standing inside his next plan.
Outside, the city reorganized itself in his reflection — lines of light and motion forming a perfect network of control.
He reached for the folder again and brushed a thumb across her printed name, the way a man might test the edge of a blade before using it.
The irony wasn't lost on him: for all his titles and towers, for all the people who feared his precision, it was this — one woman's defiance — that had finally made him reckless.
He closed the folder carefully, not creasing a single page, and for the first time in years, felt the exquisite danger of something he might not be able to contain.
A danger named Willow Hale.