When Elin excused herself to the restroom, Axton sat alone in the quiet corner of the café, his hands still resting on the empty cup between them.
He desperately wanted to hold on to that peace, to stay rooted in the fragile calm they had painstakingly built between the wreckage of the last week. But Axton was a man conditioned to expect the worst; he knew peace never lasted long in his world.
His phone buzzed once on the laminated tabletop, a sharp, insistent sound that shattered the momentary quiet. The name that flashed on the screen was one he trusted implicitly: Lance, his private security consultant.
Axton hesitated, his gaze fixed on the notification. A heavy, familiar sinking feeling had already begun to coil low in his chest, a cold certainty that the world he was trying to mend was about to be complicated by a different kind of rot. He braced himself and swiped open the message.
Lance: "You were right to have me look into it. Attached are the photos. Date stamps included."
Axton's breathing went shallow. He didn't rush. He scrolled through the attached images slowly, deliberately, forcing himself to absorb the evidence without flinching. Each photo made his stomach turn a little colder, a hard knot of professional and personal dread forming.
The subject was clear. Vivian. His executive officer, a woman he had worked with for more than a decade, whose loyalty he had never once questioned until recently. And the man she was meeting: Sebastian.
The images showed them sitting across from each other in the dim corner of a hotel café, one known for discreet business meetings near the financial district. They weren't just colleagues grabbing lunch; the body language was close, conspiratorial.
Sometimes they were just talking, their heads bent together over the polished wood of the table; sometimes her hand brushed his in a gesture that was too familiar for a professional relationship. One photo caught Vivian leaning intimately close, whispering something that caused Sebastian to lift a brow and break into a satisfied, smug smirk.
Another sequence showed them leaving. They didn't exit together—it was subtle, calculated. Vivian would step out first, glancing around, followed three minutes later by Sebastian, checking his phone as if he were just emerging from a solitary meeting. They were being careful. They were covering their tracks.
The implications hit Axton with the force of a physical blow, eclipsing the lingering pain of Elin's mistake.
The problem wasn't a one-off emotional lapse; it was a calculated threat to his company, an act of premeditated corporate sabotage. Sebastian hadn't just been interested in undermining his personal life; he had been working with a mole inside Axton's organization.
Elin's accidental kiss was a smokescreen for a much larger, more dangerous plot.
He wasn't entirely surprised, not really. The absence of surprise was almost more chilling than the betrayal itself. He had noticed the subtle, insidious shifts over the past few weeks, telling himself they were nothing, a by-product of stress. There was Vivian's sudden, sharp interest in his personal life, a curiosity she hadn't displayed in the years of working together. She'd brought up Elin's name in office chatter with just enough seeming innocence to be dismissed as harmless inquiry.
Then there was the way Sebastian had appeared at the bakery, perfectly timed, smug, and ready to feed Elin's insecurity.
At first, he had rationalized it. A coincidence. His own paranoia, fuelled by long hours and exhaustion. He had focused on the easily digestible personal drama, the immediate, painful betrayal of a kiss.
Now he knew the whole, ugly picture. The kiss was never the target; it was the ammunition.
He scrolled again, returning to the gallery of photos, but the final image stopped his breathing entirely, freezing him in place. Vivian was leaning back against a dimly lit bar, laughing—a loud, free gesture—with a proprietorial hand resting casually on Sebastian's forearm. And on the table beside her, unmistakable in the low-resolution shot, was a familiar document folder. The company's logo, a stylized letter 'A,' was visible on the corner. It was a file he had been working on for a few months.
Axton stared at the logo for a long, terrible moment, his jaw clenching so hard the muscles in his neck corded. This wasn't just corporate gossip or a side hustle. This was an active, internal betrayal.
Not only did she leak private information about his company from his private laptop, but she's also openly sharing his projects.
He replayed the past few weeks in his mind: Vivian's increased presence in his office, the seemingly harmless flirtation, the teasing, and the increasingly probing questions about the stability of his relationship with Elin. It hadn't been casual curiosity. It had been meticulously planned. A game of high-stakes corporate and personal manipulation where Sebastian was the lever and Vivian was the architect.
They had engineered the final, devastating scene in his foyer, knowing that if Axton's personal life fractured, his professional guard would drop. He had walked straight into their trap, paralyzed by a personal pain that was nothing more than calculated misdirection.
How could he have been so stupid? So easily distracted by a personal wound that he missed the execution of a professional coup right under his nose? The exhaustion in his eyes was replaced by a hard, bright alertness. The immediate, personal pain of Elin's mistake was suddenly dwarfed by the cold, structural damage of Vivian's treachery. The woman he had just comforted was an accidental victim; the woman he had relied upon was a deliberate enemy.
Axton's fingers tightened around the phone, the metal shell digging painfully into his palm. The revelation didn't ignite anger; it ignited a cold, lethal clarity. The man who had walked out last night, paralyzed by personal betrayal, was gone. In his place was the CEO, focused, relentless, and suddenly armed with the undeniable truth.
Elin came back then, walking toward the booth with a careful, tentative grace. She was discreetly wiping her eyes with a crumpled tissue, her movements betraying the recent release of strong emotion. She looked fragile but visibly lighter, as if their difficult conversation had successfully lifted a significant, crushing weight off her chest.
She offered him a weak, hopeful smile when she reached the table. "Sorry, I took a bit long."
Axton blinked once, forcing his tense features to soften into the weary look of a man who was merely emotionally drained. "It's alright," he replied, his voice carefully controlled.
But the warmth he showed her was a mask. His mind was already miles away from the secluded café booth, operating with cold, surgical precision.
When Elin slid back into the seat opposite him, he reached for her hand automatically, his thumb brushing her knuckles in a familiar, comforting motion. She accepted the touch as a gesture of reassurance, of mended trust.
It was that, but it was also a silent promise—a vow to himself to protect her, and this fragile, imperfect thing they were trying to salvage, from the calculated cruelty of the people who had tried to break it apart.
"Are you okay?" she asked softly, her gaze searching his face for any lingering sign of his pain.
Axton gave a faint smile, though the relief and tenderness didn't quite reach the cold, analytical depths of his eyes. "Yeah," he said, letting a heavy sigh lend credence to the lie. "I am now."
She nodded, seeming to believe the exhaustion was the only thing left.
He'd spent his entire professional career learning the complex art of dismantling competitors quietly. Cleanly. Without leaving a trace of a mess behind. He knew how to isolate a threat, gather evidence, and execute a termination with devastating, controlled force. Now, someone had decided to leverage his private life, his deepest vulnerability, as a weapon in a corporate game.
This wasn't business; it was personal warfare.
He reached for his coffee again, lifting the cup to his lips. The bitter, grounding taste of the liquid focused his attention.
"Elin," he said gently, his tone shifting back into the serious, intimate space they had just inhabited. "If something like that ever happens again—if anyone tries to interfere, or come between us with doubts or lies—I want you to tell me about it first. Immediately. No matter who it is, or what it sounds like." He was creating a new rule of engagement, a line of communication that would protect them from future manipulation.
She hesitated, recognizing the demand for absolute transparency. "Alright," she agreed, her voice small but firm.
He nodded once, his gaze steady on hers. "Good."
When they finally rose to leave the café, the booth they had occupied felt suddenly exposed, the neutral space having served its purpose. Axton's hand went immediately to Elin's back, his palm resting lightly just below her shoulder blade. The gesture was protective, steadying, a silent promise of continuity. To anyone observing them—the lingering waiter, the patrons at the counter—they looked simply like a couple slowly patching things up after a painful fight.
By the time they stepped out of the warm coffee shop and into the cool afternoon light, he had already decided the course of action. Retreat was not an option; he would not let two corporate saboteurs walk away with a win, especially when their attack had wounded Elin.
He would play their game.
He would feed them just enough false confidence to keep them in the open, allowing Lance time to dig deeper and expose their true motives—the specific documents they were after, the company they were colluding with, and the financial damage they intended to inflict. He would find out exactly what Vivian and Sebastian wanted to steal from him.
As they walked toward the street, Elin leaned gently against his side, drawing comfort from his solid presence. Axton responded by tightening his grip on her back, guiding her around a passing throng of pedestrians. He felt a fierce surge of devotion, laced with a potent, icy resolve. Elin was his sanctuary; his business was the structure that allowed them to live their life. Attack one, and you invited the wrath of the protector of the other.
Axton's grip on her hand tightened ever so slightly, a subtle increase in pressure that immediately snagged Elin's attention. His gaze flicked briefly across the busy street—a movement so swift and outwardly calm it was almost unreadable—but Elin noticed the crucial shift in his posture. His shoulders subtly squared, his spine went ramrod straight, and his entire body seemed to fall into a state of quiet, tense alertness.
She opened her mouth, a small bubble of concern rising in her throat, ready to ask what was wrong, but before she could voice a single word, he leaned down. His mouth was close to her ear, his voice dropping to a low, steady murmur meant only for her.
"Don't look now," he breathed. "We're being followed."
Elin froze mid-step, the shock of the words paralyzing her. "What—?" she started, a small, involuntary sound of alarm.
His thumb pressed into the soft centre of her palm once, a firm, non-negotiable command. "Keep walking. Don't turn around. Act normal. Keep your eyes on the next corner."
She swallowed hard, pushing past the initial fear, and nodded, falling back into the rhythm of walking, following his lead as they merged with the flow of pedestrians crossing the street. The late afternoon crowd bustled around them, oblivious to the high tension threading like a live wire between the couple at its centre.
"Who is it?" she whispered, the question barely audible.
"Sebastian's men," he said, his reply clipped and immediate, so quietly she almost missed it over the sound of a passing bus. "I saw one of them loitering near the office before you came. Another followed us out of the café. They're still with us."
Her heart started a frantic, uneven pound against her ribs. She didn't need to see them to feel the scrutiny. "Why would they be following us?"
"Because Sebastian's not done," Axton said. His tone was perfectly calm, yet the layer of cold, implacable steel underneath it made her shiver. "He wanted to break us to distract me, and now that we've put ourselves back together, he needs to confirm the fracture. He needs to think he's still getting what he wants."
She looked up at him in confusion, trying to reconcile the protective grip on her hand with the calculating intent in his voice. His expression remained impassive, his gaze fixed ahead on the flow of the city.
"What exactly does that mean?" she asked, a thread of fear tightening around her chest.
He stopped then, just short of the crosswalk. The traffic light blazed a vivid red, the harsh light painting the side of his face in a severe, unforgiving hue. He turned slightly toward her, his body shielding her from the casual view of the street. His voice was low, deliberate, filled with an urgent, chilling clarity.
"It means we're going to give them a show," he said, his eyes drilling into hers. "We need to deliver the scene Sebastian paid for. You and I—we're going to pretend to break up."
Her breath caught sharply, stealing her air. The sudden, violent suggestion was an emotional whiplash. "What?" she gasped, the word escaping as a strangled sound of disbelief.
Axton leaned in closer, his proximity intense and dominating. "We have to sell the fight, Elin. We need to look angry, defeated, final. He needs to believe that the last conversation we had was the bitter end. He'll get his proof that our relationship is irrevocably damaged, and he'll move on to focus on the company. That buys us the time we need to prepare for his real attack." He stared at her, waiting for the necessary, terrifying leap of faith. "Can you do that? Can you look at me like you hate me?"
Elin shook her head, bewildered, the reality of his request overwhelming the fragile peace they had just found. "Axton, why would we do something so cruel?"
"Because," he interrupted, his eyes briefly flicking over her shoulder—a quick, tactical check for their unseen audience—before meeting hers again. "They need to believe we're irrevocably finished. If they think we're completely broken, they'll stop watching you so closely. And that gives me the room to move, to neutralize them, without putting you at risk."
His gaze softened briefly, a flicker of the gentle man she knew, before the strategic hardness returned. "Just trust me," Axton urged, the words a quiet command.
His voice was measured, utterly calm, yet his thumb rubbed slow, repetitive circles against her wrist, a soothing anchor even as he spoke of imminent deception.
She stared at him, her heart churning, torn between the genuine fear of the unknown watchers and the deep, unsettling dread of faking a loss that felt too real. "I don't like this," she stated, her voice thick with reluctance.
"I don't either," he admitted, the admission so soft she barely caught it, a sliver of honesty cutting through the necessity of the moment.
There was no wavering doubt in his eyes—only a cold, clear certainty, the kind that belonged to someone accustomed to making impossible, high-stakes choices. Finally, she gave a slow, reluctant nod. "Alright," she whispered.
Axton offered her a small, tight nod of acknowledgement, then glanced around, settling on their location. "Here," he murmured. They had stopped near a quiet corner, adjacent to a narrow alleyway that led behind the Starbucks. A few pedestrians passed by, but the spot offered enough isolation to stage their performance without drawing undue attention.
He turned to face her fully, every line of his body suddenly rigid, his jaw setting in an expression she had never seen directed at her. Elin blinked, startled by the instantaneous shift. The tenderness of their conversation had vanished completely. His gaze was hard, cold, and utterly cruel, reflecting nothing of the man who had just declared his love.
"What are you doing?" she whispered, the raw emotion in his face genuinely terrifying her.
"Playing my part," he said under his breath, leaning close enough for her to hear the instruction, his eyes cold and distant.
Then, louder—with enough projection for anyone lingering across the street to catch the sound—he delivered the first line of the script. The words were simple, yet devastating. "I can't do this anymore, Elin."
Her heart lurched violently in her chest, a painful, automatic reaction even though she knew it was an act. He sounded so utterly convincing, the words cutting through the dull afternoon air with an edge of finality that made a few people glance briefly in their direction before hurrying on.
"What do you mean?" she asked, her voice trembling—the fear, the confusion, and the manufactured shock blending into a perfect performance that was terrifyingly real. "After everything we just said?"
"You think I can just forget what happened? That you kissed him?" Axton's voice was loud now, sharp with a manufactured, wounded anger that carried across the pavement. His hands sliced the air with a gesture of restrained fury, a performance so convincing it felt brutally real even to Elin. He looked like a man whose core belief had been violently shattered.
Elin's chest tightened painfully, a genuine physical reaction to the simulated assault. She lowered her gaze, trying desperately to play along, but the accusatory words, delivered with such cold force, struck her harder than she had anticipated.
"I said I was sorry," she whispered, the raw emotion in her voice not entirely feigned.
He stepped closer, closing the gap until his face was inches from hers, his expression darkening with manufactured rage. His voice dropped to an intimate, low murmur for her ears alone. "You're doing good," he encouraged, the warmth of the conspirator beneath the mask of the heartbroken lover. "Just a little more, Elin. Make it final."
Then, in a seamless, devastating transition, he took a step back, running a hand through his already dishevelled hair, adopting the posture of utter exasperation. "I can't keep doing this," he declared, his voice rising again. "This doubt, this constant wondering—it's killing me. Maybe we should just... end it."
Elin blinked rapidly, the harshness of the light and the cruelty of the words combining to prick her eyes. Tears welled up—not entirely from acting, but from the terrifying realization of how easily this could have been real. "Axton... No. I can't... we can't..." she pleaded, raising her voice enough to be heard. "I love you."
Her voice cracked at the perfect moment, fragile and utterly final, sounding like a woman pleading a losing case. She sold the defeat.
For a few agonizing seconds, the world around them seemed to blur into an indistinct rush. The distant, continuous drone of traffic. The faint, casual chatter from passing pedestrians who gave them a wide berth. Somewhere behind them, Axton could sense a subtle movement—a shift in position, the satisfying confirmation that their audience was locked in, getting the footage they needed. He held his stance, never breaking his gaze from her defeated face, he couldn't risk revealing the deception by looking.
Finally, he let out a long, ragged exhale, the sound of a man relinquishing a burden he could no longer carry. He spoke softly, for her ears only. "Now walk away, Elin. Don't look back."
Her eyes glistened, catching the remaining afternoon light. She nodded once, swallowing the immense ache rising in her throat, absorbing the quiet command. She turned on her heel and started walking down the sidewalk, her steps quick, uneven, a perfect depiction of hasty retreat and profound loss.
Every nerve ending was screaming at her to stop, to run back and cling to him, to shatter the lie they had just enacted. She had to fight the urge to glance over her shoulder, to check for his comforting presence. She focused on the cracks in the pavement, the vibrant colour of a passing cab, anything to keep the genuine tears from flooding her vision.
Axton stood there, jaw tight, watching her go until she turned the corner. Then, slowly, he reached into his pocket, took out his phone, and typed a single message to his men.