The silence in Kenzo's penthouse was a physical presence, thick and suffocating. He stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows, a glass of untouched whiskey in his hand, staring at the glittering Tokyo skyline that now felt like a gilded cage. The city was alive, pulsing with ambition and life, while he felt hollowed out, a ghost in his own home.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the hurt in Sharon's eyes at the gala, the finality in her note, the crumpled invoice on his screen. My lawyer will be in touch about the payment. That's all I want from you now.
The words were like a sharp blade. She hadn't screamed or cursed. She had simply itemized their relationship and sent him a bill. It was the most devastating thing she could have done.
He drained the whiskey, the burn doing nothing to warm the ice in his veins. Sleep was like a forgotten country. His mind was a torture chamber, replaying every mistake on a loop. The feel of Nadia's lips, a grotesque, drunken blur, and the memory of Sharon's, soft and real in the rain, tormented him in equal measure.
The next morning, the office felt unfamiliar. He strode through the doors at 8:05, a time he hadn't arrived since his intern days. The receptionist, Midori, did a double-take. "Mr. Hayashi! Good morning. Your 8:30 with the Singapore investors has been moved to Conference Room B. The materials are... well, we're preparing them now."
Kenzo grunted, not breaking his stride. He pushed open the door to his office and stopped. The desk was neat and organized but felt lifeless. There was no steaming cup of coffee waiting, the precise blend of black with one sugar. The day's schedule wasn't printed and laid out with color-coded tabs for urgency. The air didn't carry the faint, calming scent of her jasmine perfume.
It was just a room.
He sat down, the leather chair groaning in the silence. He tried to focus on the Singapore deal memo on his screen, but the numbers swam before his eyes. At 8:25, his new temp, a young man named Akira, knocked tentatively.
"Mr. Hayashi? The Singapore team is ready. And... the IT department is asking for the passcode to the Nakamura patent server. They say Ms. Lee was the only one with it?"
Kenzo's head snapped up. The passcode. She had created a unique, encrypted key after the hack. He'd told her to handle it. He never bothered to learn it.
"Tell them to reset it," Kenzo said, his voice rough.
"It'll take four hours, sir. The demo for Nakamura Corp is at noon."
A cold sweat broke out on the back of his neck. "Just do it."
The meeting with the Singapore investors was a disaster. He was unprepared, his thoughts scattered. He fumbled for data points that should have been at his fingertips, and when one of them asked a detailed question about the Q4 integration timeline, he drew a complete blank.
"I... will have my team get back to you on that," he said, the phrase feeling foreign and weak on his tongue. He never said "my team." He was the team. He knew the answers.
He saw the subtle glance the investors exchanged. The unshakable Kenzo Hayashi was shaken.
Returning to his office, his phone buzzed. It was his aunt, Miko.
"Kenzo, dear! We haven't heard from Sharon-chan since Seoul. Is she well? Obaasan is asking when she's coming for her monthly visit. She's already planning the menu!"
The cheerful, innocent question was a punch to the gut. He could barely form words. "She's... fine, Aunt Miko. Just very busy. A big project." Every lie tasted like ash.
"Tell her we miss her! She brought such light into the family."
He ended the call, dropping his head into his hands. Light. She had been the light, and he had blown it out
The disaster peaked at noon. The video conference with Nakamura Corp's board flickered to life. Leo Nakamura himself was there, his shark-like smile already in place.
"Hayashi," he greeted, his tone dripping with false cheer. "Ready to show us this unbreachable system?"
The IT lead, sweating visibly, began the demo. It was clunky. The reset passcode had caused descending issues, and a minor bug, the one Sharon had identified and scheduled a patch for, caused the system to lag dramatically.
Nakamura didn't miss a beat. "This is what you call 'cutting-edge'? It's cutting into my confidence, Hayashi. My board has concerns. Perhaps we were too hasty in our agreement." He leaned into the camera. "Where's your secret weapon, anyway? The brilliant Ms. Lee? Did you finally run her off?"
Kenzo's knuckles were white where he gripped the edge of his desk. "The system is secure. These are minor glitches."
"Minor glitches lose major deals," Nakamura countered smoothly. "We're putting the partnership on hold. Indefinitely. Get your house in order, Hayashi. Call me when you have something, or someone worth my time again."
The screen went black then silence. The kind of silence that costs millions.
Kenzo sat in the darkening room, the weight of it all crushing him. The failed meeting, the stalled patent, the disappointed family, Nakamura's gloating. It was a house of cards, and the central pillar, Sharon—had been removed. He hadn't just lost the woman he loved; he was watching the empire he'd built begin to crumble without her.
He opened the email again. The invoice reading. 'Formal Invoice and Breach of Contract.' It was so cold.
But as he stared at it, a desperate, crazy idea began to form in his mind. A nuclear option, just as desperate as his situation.
Wiring the money would be an admission of guilt, a final period at the end of their story. He couldn't do it. If she wanted to make this a transaction, then he would make it the transaction of a lifetime.
He picked up his phone, his thumb hovering over a single contact: E. Tanaka - Legal.
"Eiichi," he said, his voice regaining a sliver of its old command, forged now in desperation. "I need a contract drawn up. A consulting agreement. Listen carefully..."
Two Days Later
The chaos had only deepened. Two more meetings had been missed. An entire server cluster had gone down for three hours because no one knew her emergency reboot protocol. The office was a ship adrift without its navigator.
Kenzo sat in his office, the blinds drawn. He looked at the document his lawyer had just emailed him. It was perfect but brutal, in its own way.
It was a consulting contract for "Project Phoenix," a name he'd chosen with a bitter irony. The scope of work was narrowly, brilliantly defined: to stabilize the Nakamura patent integration and secure the partnership. The fee was three times the total on her invoice, with a massive performance bonus upon success.
But the real masterstroke was in the fine print. It stipulated that due to the sensitive nature of the intellectual property, all work had to be conducted on-site at Hayashi Tech or in designated, secure neutral locations with him present. It forced proximity. It was a cage he was building for her, but he was willingly stepping into it with her.
He attached the contract to a new email. His finger trembled slightly as he typed the subject line, a silent prayer and a declaration of war all in one.
SUBJECT: A Counter-Proposal - Project Phoenix
Sharon,
Please find attached a formal consulting agreement. The Nakamura deal is failing. The systems you built are faltering without you. This is not an attempt to rehash the past. This is a business proposal from a client who recognizes a singular, unique talent.
The terms are non-negotiable.
Kenzo Hayashi
CEO, Hayashi Tech
He hit send before he could lose his nerve. Leaning back, he stared at the sent message. He had just offered his heart on a legal document, disguised as a business deal. He had thrown down the gauntlet.
Now, all he could do was wait. And hope that her desire for revenge, or perhaps, buried deep beneath the ice, a lingering shred of something else, would be enough to bring her back to the battlefield.