Chapter 35
Lance
"Company emergency." The lie came easily, years of practice making it smooth. "I need to handle this immediately."
Eleanor's gaze locked onto mine, and in her eyes I saw something that made my chest constrict—recognition. Understanding. As if she could read exactly what kind of emergency had me abandoning dinner mid-course.
"Of course," she said softly. "Some things can't wait."
I didn't trust myself to respond. Didn't trust what my voice might reveal if I tried to explain why the thought of Serena Vance spending three hours with a man like Henderson made my carefully maintained control feel like it was cracking at the seams.
The front door seemed miles away. My footsteps echoed too loudly in the marble foyer, my breathing too harsh in the sudden silence. I was reaching for my phone to call Vincent when I saw him—already waiting at the curb, engine running, my car idling like he'd known I'd be coming.
"Le Bernardin," I said, sliding into the passenger seat. "Now."
Vincent didn't ask questions. He simply smiled—that knowing, infuriating smile that said he'd already anticipated everything—and pulled away from the estate with enough force to press me back against the leather.
"You know who she's with?" My voice came out rougher than I'd intended.
"Henderson." Vincent's expression darkened. "Runs a mid-tier investment fund. Known for—"
"Known for what?" I cut him off.
Vincent's jaw tightened. "Marcus Henderson has a reputation. Every business dinner ends the same way—hotel room booked before the appetizers arrive. He doesn't take meetings with women unless he expects them horizontal by dessert."
My hands fisted against my thighs. "How long have they been there?"
"Three hours and seventeen minutes when I texted you. Could be longer now."
Three hours. Three hours of Henderson's oily charm, his practiced seduction, his—
"Faster."
Vincent's grin widened as he gunned the engine, weaving through traffic with the kind of precision that came from years of driving for people who couldn't afford to be late. The city blurred past us—lights and shadows, pedestrians and storefronts, everything reduced to obstacles between me and wherever Serena was.
I told myself this was about duty. About protecting an employee. About preventing a potential scandal that could reflect poorly on the company now that she worked for me.
I told myself it had nothing to do with the memory of her skin under my hands in that bathtub, the way she'd looked at me like I was something more than the machine everyone believed me to be, the fact that I hadn't been able to focus on a single goddamn thing all day because she'd called in sick and some irrational part of my brain had been convinced something was wrong.
The rational part of my brain knew I was lying to myself. I ignored it.
"There." Vincent slowed as we approached Le Bernardin, the restaurant's understated elegance a stark contrast to the knot of anxiety tightening in my chest. The street was quieter here, fewer pedestrians, the kind of neighborhood where people paid for privacy.
Something tightened in my chest. My eyes darted across the street, the sidewalk, the intersections—looking for nothing, looking for everything.
My pulse kicked up. I couldn't stay still—eyes darting across the street, the sidewalk, the intersections. Looking for nothing. Looking for everything.
Movement in the alley to our right. A woman, alone, walking with the careful precision of someone who'd had a drink too many. Head bowed against the wind, one hand clutching her coat closed, the other pressing her phone to her ear. The cold seemed to cut right through her. Something about the way she moved—
"Stop the car."
Vincent was already braking before I finished the sentence. I had the door open before we'd fully stopped, my heart doing something irregular and painful in my chest because I knew, even before I saw her face clearly, that it was her.
"Serena!"
She looked up. For one frozen second, our eyes met across the distance—hers wide, startled, reflecting the streetlights like amber catching fire. Then she did something I hadn't anticipated, something that sent a fresh spike of alarm through my system.
She ran.
Not toward me. Away. Into the deeper shadows of the alley, her heels clicking frantically against the pavement, her phone still clutched in one hand.
I was moving before thought, before reason, before anything except the primal need to reach her, to understand why she was running, to make sure she was—
"Serena, wait!"