Kyle's POV
The penthouse elevator opened with a soundless whoosh, and Viola stepped out, escorted by two silent, black-suited security professionals. She dismissed them with a sharp glance—the same lethal corporate glare she used to dismantle a failing editorial team—and they evaporated back into the elevator car.
I was standing at the edge of the vast, black granite desk. I was still wearing the soft, casual grey sweater, a uniform of vulnerability that did nothing to mask the dangerous tension emanating from me.
"The Arbiter arrives," I stated, my voice tight. "The extraction was successful, though messy, I presume."
Viola dropped her Van Cleef bag and walked straight toward me, stopping close enough for the sheer force of her rage to hit me. She wasn't trembling; she was glacial, honed to a razor edge by a month of strategic vengeance.
"The extraction was a formality," she countered, her voice low and venomous. "I came here to deliver the severance package, which, for you, is total structural collapse." She reached inside her jacket and pulled out the sharp, silver letter opener, placing it deliberately on the desk between us. "I'm done with the war of numbers, Kyle. I'm here for the truth."
I didn't flinch at the sight of the weapon. I simply looked into her eyes. "Then state your terms."
"The trust," she hissed, nodding at the news alert still visible on my desktop screen. "The bookstore sold for a loss, but the collection is secured for me. You didn't do that out of devotion. You did it to cripple my liquidity—to ensure that even when I dismantle your empire, I still exist on your terms, dependent on your financial legacy."
She slammed her hands flat onto the desk, her expression raw with pain. "Everything—the diamonds, the acquisition, the public retraction—it was all a brilliantly executed game of high-value containment. And the final, sickening punchline was seeing that woman, Jenna, walk out of this elevator, confirming I was just a temporary asset you contained while the old asset was being officially divested!"
Her voice finally cracked. "I was a fool. I told myself I was fighting for editorial integrity, but I was fighting the one thing I swore I'd never surrender to a strategist like you! I let my guard down because, for one perfect week, I thought your obsession was real. I thought the man who got a boner talking about corporate destruction actually saw me, Kyle. I thought I finally met my equal, someone whose intensity matched mine, and I fell for you!"
The confession hung in the vast, silent space—a devastating, complete surrender. "And knowing it was just a game for you—a means of high-level conquest—it was the most humiliating loss of my entire life."
I took a deep, ragged breath. I didn't move toward her, but the intensity in my dark eyes was absolute.
"You are right about one thing, Arbiter," I admitted, my voice rough. "It was a game. A war. A campaign. And I was ruthless in my attempts to win you. But you are wrong about the rest."
I slowly reached across the desk and picked up the silver letter opener, turning the sharp point toward myself. I looked at it, then back at her.
"The trust is inviolable, Viola. It's structured so neither of us can touch the principal. It is the only thing I have ever built that is truly permanent and beyond my control. It was not a bribe; it was an act of terror-stricken preemptive protection. It was the moment I realized you could destroy my company, but I wouldn't let you destroy your value."
I dropped the letter opener, the clatter echoing in the room. I walked around the desk, closing the distance between us until we were chest to chest.
"The day you walked into my office, you didn't just become my primary asset; you became my sole focus," I confessed, the admission stripping the final layer of corporate composure from my voice. "I didn't sleep with Jenna. I haven't slept with anyone since I met you. The only reason she was here was that Marshall missed one automated cancellation from weeks ago, and she was here for ten seconds before I drove her out with a threat of financial ruin."
I cupped her face, my gaze fierce. "I tried to hide you. I tried to use strategy to contain a feeling I have never had before, because I was terrified of giving you this much power. When I said I was married to the bottom line, I meant that you are my bottom line. You are the immovable, non-liquid, permanent truth of my life."
"I am in love with your chaos, your intellect, and the ruthless, terrifying way you dismantled my life's work this last month. You waged a magnificent war, Vi. And you won."
I pulled her against me, burying my face in her hair. "But the treaty is now official. The bookstore is the contract, and this penthouse is the only field of operations I ever want to share with you. Now, stop fighting my company, and start fighting me. I miss you too much."
Viola's POV
His confession hit me like a physical force—a brutal, beautiful admission of love from a man who treated vulnerability like a market deficiency. My arms, which had been pressing against his chest, resisting him, slowly softened and wrapped around his waist. The month of freezing rage melted, replaced by a devastating ache of relief and pure, blinding surrender.
"You haven't slept with anyone since me," I repeated, the words a fragile whisper against his sweater. That was it. That was the proof of concept I needed. A strategist like Kyle Lodge did not sacrifice a lifetime of casual comfort for an 'asset' unless that asset was the core of his survival.
"No," he confirmed, his voice a low vibration against my temple. "Only silence. Only the sound of you tearing my company apart from across the river. You think the trust was an insult? It was me panicking, trying to build a cage around your worth that even I couldn't dismantle if I lost my mind again."
I pulled back just enough to look at his face. His eyes were dark, stripped bare, and completely focused on me. This was the man who had gotten aroused by my ruthless logic, the one who saw my complexity and not just my beauty.
"When I saw Jenna," I started, my voice still thick with the residue of tears and humiliation, "it wasn't just the betrayal. It was realising I had fallen so far that I let myself hope you were different. I thought I was strong enough to compartmentalise, but I wasn't. I was jealous, Kyle. Violently, irrationally jealous, and that scared me more than any hostile takeover."
"Good," he muttered, tracing the curve of my cheekbone with his thumb. "Be jealous. Be chaotic. Just be here."
He leaned down and kissed me again, this time not with desperation, but with a profound, anchoring certainty. The kiss was slow, deep, a silent negotiation of the truth. It was a promise that the fighting was over, but the intensity had just begun.
"I quit my job, Kyle," I murmured against his mouth. "I resigned from Sterling. My severance package is a very sharp letter opener I intend to put to use."
He smiled, a genuine, slow curve of his lips that made my stomach flip. "I anticipated that. The only place you belong is here, on my side of the desk. And I believe the Viola Library is currently in need of a full-time, highly compensated Arbiter."
He lifted me, effortlessly, the way he had done that night at the desk. But this time, he didn't put me on the cold granite. He simply held me, his strength a warm, undeniable reality.
"Take me to the chaos, Kyle." I whispered, wrapping my legs around his waist, pulling his sweater close.