Chapter 69: A Night at His Penthouse

Lisa’s POV

The city appeared different when you weren’t trying to take it.

From the backseat of Leo’s car, Ottawa was reduced to ribbons of white light and shadow, the streets glossy with the faint film of thawed frost. The gala had me feeling dizzy — so many faces , so many stares, so much history bubbling up all in this one sparkling, stifling night. I should have gone home. That would have been the rational option. The safe one.

But the moment Leo had leaned down and whispered, “You shouldn’t go home alone tonight. There were too many eyes on you,” I had no instinct to argue.

It had been to trust him.

Then the elevator took us to the top floor of his penthouse in dense, cushioned silence, the sort that hummed rather than bounced. No music, no small talk — just the faint rhythmic pulsing of the cables as they hoist us up higher and farther above the city.

Above everyone.

“That dance… ” I said, then stopped again as my reflection caught his in the opposite wall.

“Yes?” he asked, his voice calm.

“I didn’t plan it.”

“I know,” he said. “That’s why it meant something.”

The doors opened. His penthouse welcomed us with warm golden light and open air, floor-to-ceiling windows that consumed half the skyline. The moonlit Ottawa River glistened, as if holding a secret. Nothing sounded in here — so muffled was the world that it sounded as if the penthouse were somehow between reality and something much closer, in the olfactory senses.

He released his jacket, placing it on a chair, and motioned softly toward the living space.

"You can sit down." “The night’s been biting you?” From the look of you, the night has been biting you.

“I'm not that easy to break.”

He looked at me, a faint smile on his lips. “That’s what I’m counting on.”

I slipped off my high heels and sighed a release breath that I didn’t even know I was holding for the last hours in the day. The floor was heated under me. The sofa — broad, deep, plush, inviting — sat in silence between both of us.

I settled in, pulling my legs up under me for warmth. A moment later, Leo took the seat beside me, not quite close enough for our arms to touch, but close enough to say a lot.

The silence stretched between us, but it wasn’t awkward. There’s a lot of unspoken between us. With all the things that we are all avoiding talking about because if we start talking about them, everything changes.

At last, I breathed out. “Andre was looking like he was about to rip the place up.”

“He doesn’t like losing control,” Leo said.

“He never truly got to have it.”

Pause.

"He's still pretending that he does."

‘And that’s what makes him so dangerous,’ I whispered, looking out at the city.

Leo leaned back his head against the cushion. “I meant what I said tonight earlier.”

The grip of my fingers on the material under me braised a little. “I know.”

“I’m serious Lisa. I’m not going to let him do that to you again. Ever.”

I turned my face toward him. It was softened now in the dim amber light, the sharp planes of business and bravado softened into something less stark. More real.

“You can’t be my shield, Leo, not forever.”

“Good,” he said quietly. “I don’t intend to just be your shield.”

The suggestion hung between us, precarious and vast.

So I changed the subject. I had to. “Why did you pick a place like this? The penthouse. The sky. The solitude.”

He was silent a long time.

“Because I used to climb the roof of my apartment building when I was a kid,” he said, eyes still closed. “It seemed the only spot the world was small enough to not scare me.”

That response coiled around my chest more intimately than I anticipated.

“And now?” I asked.

“Now I built my own roof. Higher. Quieter. ”

I looked at him again, this time for real. Not the man everyone saw. But the boy who, once upon a time, sat alone above the world just to breathe.

“I didn’t know that about you,” I said softly.

“Most people don’t ask.”

We just kept talking. About little things and big things.There’s childhood memories. Favorite books. Lost dreams. The first things that had ever made us feel powerful. The first things that had ever broken us. Hours passed imperceptibly as if they were snow drifting down a melting river.

Our shoulders finally bumped.

Then our arms.

Then somewhere along the line, my head rested against his, and we didn’t move apart.

That city continued to shine just for us. The stars hung in the sky like silent witnesses.

At a certain point, he started breathing differently.

Slower. Deeper.

He had fallen asleep.

Leo—always in control, always ten steps ahead—was finally, utterly at rest.

I stayed still, afraid that if I moved even a little bit it might shatter whatever was loosehold in the world had just been granted to him.

In the soft half-light I followed with my eyes: his face. The slope of his nose. The soft crease between his brows which took a rest when he had not read. How his lashes rest on his cheek.

He looked young, just like this.

Vulnerable.

Human.

And for the first time because this entire twisted plan had started, I allowed myself to feel something without thinking about it first.

My heart is shifting.

The thought frightened me more than he ever did. I just watched him breathe, and I thought, for exactly one reckless––one wonderfully reckless moment––about what it would be like to wake up next to him every morning, Not as a deal. Not as a compromise. But as a deciding.

It felt dangerous.

But it also felt right.

I pulled the throw over us both without hesitation. My fingers ran over his sleeve, resting a little too long.

He twitched slightly, then his arm instinctively moved－pressed around my waist.

A tired, unconscious tug drawing me to him.

I froze, air lodged in my throat.

But he didn’t wake.

And now his forehead was pressed lightly against my temple, his warmth surrounding me like a silent vow. I rested my hand on his chest, tracing the even pulse of his heart.

It was strong.

Steady.

Alive.

Tangled with mine.

Outside, the world carried on — rife with plots, secrets and betrayals — but for that moment, in that penthouse, everything stopped.

When morning light finally claimed the windows, wan and soft, I was the one who stirs.

I batted my eyes open to a gentle blue sky, the sun gliding across the outlines of the city. My body felt warm. Safety.

Heavy.

I made a slight shift… and was just able to glimpse how entangled we were.

My leg was draped over his. His arm was still coiled around my waist. Every little breath I take, my hair brushes against his face.

He opened his eyes slowly.

For a brief moment, he simply looked at me. No walls. No masks. No plans.

"Good morning, Lisa," he whispered, his voice hoarse with sleep.

"Good morning, Leo," I said softly.

Neither of us moved.

None of us really wanted to.

And in the tranquil space between night and day, I realized without another word ……

All right. Something was different.