Kyle's POV
The moment I stepped out of the studio and into the cold Manhattan air, the corrosive effect of the lie hit me. It wasn't the lie itself—I had built a career on selective truth—it was the immediate, chilling knowledge that I had jeopardised the most critical asset I'd ever acquired. Viola.
My phone was already in my hand, but I paused before calling Marshall. No. Marshall couldn't fix this. Marshall dealt with logistics, not explosions of a woman's justifiable fury.
I walked straight past the waiting Bentley, pulling out my secure phone. I needed to hear her voice, but I couldn't risk a formal, strategic call. I needed raw, unfiltered data on her emotional state.
I called her cell. It rang once, twice, then clicked.
"The person you are trying to reach is unavailable. Please leave a message after the tone."
Her voicemail message. Clean, professional, and entirely detached. It was her corporate voice, the one she used to tear apart intellectual assets. And it confirmed my worst fear: the armor was back up.
I dialled again. Straight to voicemail. A third time. Voicemail.
The strategic silence was deafening. She wasn't ignoring my call; she had likely blocked my number on her personal device and simply left her corporate phone—the one I had paid for—in her office.
I stood on the sidewalk, the city noise receding, leaving only the frantic drumming of my own heart. The grand strategic plan, the meticulous, beautiful architecture of my slow-burn seduction, had just been incinerated by one casual, practiced lie.
I signalled to Marshall. He jogged toward me, his face impassive.
"Marshall, I want a full trace on Vi's movements from the moment she left the building. I need to know where she is right now"
"This is a five-alarm corporate emergency. She is my primary asset. Find her. Use every resource. And while you're doing that, dispatch my private jet to Teterboro. I'm leaving the country in one hour."
Marshall didn't argue. "Destination, sir?"
"London. I am going to buy a bookstore. The kind of ridiculous, multi-million dollar flagship with enough rare books to fill a library. I want it secured, papers drawn, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony planned for Friday."
Marshall blinked once. "A spontaneous, high-value acquisition of a literary landmark as an apology?"
"No," I stated, my voice cold with conviction. "A spontaneous, high-value, ridiculously public declaration that I am no longer married to the bottom line, Marshall. I am acquiring a cultural asset to honor the woman I just denied. It's a retraction wrapped in a merger. I am going to publicly announce the acquisition and its purpose—Viola—in the most extravagant, intellectually humiliating way possible. Now move."
I got in the car, slamming the door. The internal war was over. I wasn't just losing it; I was launching a nuclear counter-strike against myself. I was going to use my money, my control, and my absolute refusal to lose her, to prove that my public life was a lie and my private devotion was the truth.
Viola's POV
I spent the next forty-eight hours in a fog of self-pity and righteous rage. My cozy brownstone, once my sanctuary, felt like a velvet cage of my own making. I ignored all incoming professional communication, letting Gail handle the inevitable fallout.
I refused to look at my phone, but I couldn't ignore Angela, who had been hovering with a quiet, patient fury.
On Friday morning, I was sitting on the floor, flipping through the pages of an old, tattered copy of Pride and Prejudice—seeking literary comfort in a world of controlled romance—when Angela tossed the latest edition of The Financial Times onto my lap. The front page was dominated by a huge, impossible photo of Kyle Lodge.
The headline was simple and absurd: LODGE MEDIA ACQUIRES LONDON'S OLDEST RARE BOOK EMPORIUM IN SHOCK $30M DEAL.
"What is this?" I muttered, skimming the text.
"Read the quote, Viola," Angela commanded, pointing a paint-smudged finger at a bolded section near the end of the article.
I read the quote, and a deep breath left my body.
I looked up at Angela, my eyes wide. "He… he bought a bookstore for me?"
"Vi," Angel said, her voice dropping to a low, serious tone. "He didn't buy you a diamond necklace. He bought you a flagship. He took the most ruthless, expensive tool in his arsenal—corporate acquisition—and used it to publicly retract his lie. He just used the bottom line to destroy his own public image, all for a woman he wouldn't even acknowledge three days ago."
Kyle's POV
The penthouse was silent and cold. I was back from London, having completed the most emotionally reckless financial transaction of my life. I was wearing an impossibly expensive, casual grey sweater—a surrender to comfort—and jeans. I was sitting at the black granite desk, the gold-plated typewriter mocking my recent lack of control.
A slow smile touched my lips. Good. She was asserting the narrative.
I knew she was home.
I dialled Marshall.
"What are the final instructions?"He asked.
"First, I need the single most comfortable, enormous, velvet armchair you can find. It needs to be delivered to her apartment in the West Village tonight. Something entirely impractical, something that screams cozy intellectual chaos."
"A high-value, over-sized furniture piece for emotional leverage. Understood. And the second item?"
I paused, looking at the silent typewriter.
"The second item," I said, my voice low with a new kind of conviction, "is a ring. Find the most unique, ridiculously old, and impossibly rare diamond you can procure. I don't want a new setting; I want something with history. I want it on my desk by 8:00 AM tomorrow."
Viola's POV
A note was taped to the flowers he had delivered to my apartment. I read the handwriting—his precise, elegant script: