Power has a scent.
It smells like dark wood, cold metal, and Alexander Knight's cologne, something expensive, deliberate, and quietly lethal.
His office is a temple to that power. Every surface gleam, every detail perfect. The skyline behind him bleeds through the glass like another possession he's claimed.
And me, I stand across his desk, refusing the seat he gestured to.
It feels like a boardroom confrontation, not a conversation between two people who used to share whispers in the dark.
He leans back in his chair, eyes tracing me the way one reads a document, searching for weakness, finding none.
"Sit, Selene," he says. His tone is calm. Too calm.
"I'd rather stand."
His jaw flexes once, the smallest sign of irritation. "You make everything harder than it needs to be."
"Because you make everything sound like a transaction."
He exhales, a low, controlled sound. "You're overreacting."
"And you're overreaching."
The silence between us is almost tangible.
If this were six years ago, I would've backed down by now.
But six years ago, I didn't have two children who depended on me. Six years ago, I didn't know how to protect myself from the gravity of this man.
Now, I do. Or at least I pretend to.
"This arrangement works," he says finally, voice measured, businesslike. "You and the twins here, with me. Stability. Routine. It's what they need."
"It's what you want."
"They're the same thing."
"No, Alexander." I cross my arms. "They never were."
He studies me for a long moment.
That gaze, assessing, dissecting, the same one that's probably made hundreds of CEOs fold under him.
But I'm not one of his board members.
And he can't buy my silence with wealth.
"You're angry because I make decisions," he says at last.
"I'm angry because you make them for me."
"You were never good at letting anyone take care of you."
"And you were never good at asking before taking."
Something shifts in his eyes, a flicker of heat, frustration, maybe even pain.
He stands, slowly. The movement feels deliberate, a reminder of who commands this space.
But I don't move.
He walks around the desk, stopping a few feet from me. "You think I'm trying to control you?"
"I know you are."
"I'm trying to keep this from falling apart."
"Then maybe stop gripping it so tight."
The air tightens, pulling us toward an invisible line neither of us can cross without burning.
He steps closer. "You think you understand what I'm doing, Selene, but you don't. Everything I've built…"
"…isn't an excuse to treat people like assets."
His voice drops, darker now. "You're not just anyone."
"Then stop acting like I'm a deal you need to secure."
His nostrils flare, the first real crack in his armor.
For a moment, we just stand there, two storms locked in the same sky.
He says, quieter now, "You think this is easy for me? Watching you slip through my hands again?"
"You're not losing me," I whisper. "You never had me."
That lands.
I see it in his eyes, the moment the words cut through the confidence, through the command.
He takes a breath, as if steadying himself. "You're right. I didn't have you. Because you never stayed long enough to see what it could've been."
"Because what it was," I say, "wasn't love. It was you deciding when to touch, when to talk, when to feel. You controlled everything, even silence."
He looks at me then, really looks, not as the woman who left him, but as the one standing here now. The one he can't bend.
"You've changed," he says quietly.
"Good," I answer. "So have you. You just don't like what that means."
His hand lifts slightly, like he wants to touch me, then stops.
For a heartbeat, vulnerability flickers through the cracks of his composure.
"I can't lose control around you," he admits, voice barely above a whisper.
"Then maybe that's your problem," I say. "Not mine."
He laughs, low, bitter, almost self-mocking. "Do you know what happens when I lose control?"
"Yes," I say softly. "I remember."
The memory between us is a ghost, one that smells like heat and regret, one that still burns in the quiet corners of my skin.
He moves closer again, the distance shrinking, until I can feel the warmth of his breath near my cheek.
"Every time you fight me," he murmurs, "I want you more."
"That's not desire," I whisper. "That's obsession."
"Maybe they're the same thing when it comes to you."
I take a step back, breaking the spell.
His expression tightens, but I don't let him speak.
"Alexander, listen to me." My voice steadies, sharp and calm. "You can't build a family the way you build an empire. You can't manage hearts like markets. And you can't fix what broke between us by trying to control me again."
He stands there, breathing hard, not from anger, but from the effort of not letting it show.
Finally, he says, "Then tell me what to do, Selene. Because I don't know how to want you without wanting to keep you."
And there it is, the truth that neither of us expected to escape his lips.
It's not power that drives him anymore.
It's fear.
Fear of losing what he can't command.
I soften then, just a little.
"Maybe," I say, "the first thing to learn is that love doesn't mean control. It means trust."
He meets my eyes, searching, unsure. "And you trust me?"
"Not yet," I say honestly. "But the twins do. And that's something."
He swallows hard, jaw working, eyes turning toward the window.
The city outside reflects on the glass, fractured, brilliant.
And maybe, in some poetic twist, that's exactly what we are.
He finally says, "You always did know how to dismantle me without lifting a finger."
"That's not what I'm trying to do."
"No," he murmurs. "You're trying to change me."
I shake my head. "No, Alexander. I'm trying to reach you."
He looks back at me then, that impossible, layered look that's half apology, half desire, half challenge.
He's always been a man made of halves.
Then, after a long silence, he says, "You won't win."
"I'm not trying to."
He tilts his head, a faint smile ghosting his lips. "Then why do you keep fighting me?"
"Because it's the only way to make you see me," I whisper. "Not as something to claim. But as someone to love."
He says nothing. Just watches me as I turn to leave.
At the door, I pause, sensing his gaze still burning against my back.
And then I hear it, low, almost inaudible, like a confession meant for no one.
"I don't bend, Selene."
I glance over my shoulder. "Then maybe one day, you'll learn how to break, and realize that's how light gets in."
When I walk out, I don't feel victorious.
I feel raw, trembling, undone.
Because for the first time, I saw something in his eyes I'd never seen before…
not hunger, not anger, but helplessness.
And if I'm not careful, that might be the one thing that breaks me, too.
And, as I continue my stride, I realized that love isn't conquest. It's surrender, not to another's will, but to truth.
That, the strongest hearts aren't the ones that never break.
They're the ones that learn how to bend.