Chapter 33 Collateral Hearts
Eli’s POV
I left her office before I said something I could not pull back out of the air.
The look on her face when she said whatever this is is killing my credibility was going to sit under my ribs for a long time. Not because she was wrong about the way the world read us, but because there had been a split second where I saw the part of her that hated herself for saying it.
The hallway outside felt too bright. Mercer logos on the walls, employees pretending not to watch me walk past like they were not all listening to the same gossip feeds.
In the on site ops room, the hum of machines and chatter steadied me. Screens glowed with network graphs instead of headlines. Work I knew how to do.
Mila peeled herself away from her station and caught up with me as I headed for the back corner. She tapped my arm, not hard, just enough to make me stop moving.
“Do not be a noble idiot, Ward,” she said.
“I did not say anything,” I answered.
“You did not have to,” she said. “Your face is auditioning for a tragic war movie.”
I slumped into a chair, elbows on my knees. “She wants to cut me loose,” I said. “Not because of me. Because of what people think they see when I stand near her.”
Mila hopped up to sit on the edge of the table. “Her entire identity is built on being untouchable,” she said. “Control, competence, never giving anyone a foothold to question her right to be in the room. Now strangers are passing around the sound of her enjoying sex like a party trick and asking if that means she is bad at her job. That is not about you. That is about the way the world eats women like her.”
I did not respond.
“She is not ashamed she wanted you,” Mila went on, gentler. “She is furious that wanting you is being used to undermine the one thing she built for herself. You walking away does not solve that. It just gives them a new, sad ending.”
She was right. It did not make the sting any less.
While I paced behind the consoles, Harper arrived, heels sharp on the marble. She went straight past me to Sloane’s door with murder in her eyes. I caught a glimpse through the glass as she walked in, Sloane sitting too straight at her desk, hand white knuckled on a pen. Harper’s mouth moved fast, slicing through the air. Legal words. Practical ones. Takedown requests, burdens of proof, the speed of gossip versus the speed of law.
None of it would put that sound back in a box.
Hours later, when the building had thinned out and most of the staff had gone home to watch our day sliced and diced on evening news, I went back to her office.
She was at the window again, city lights painting her in blue and gold. From behind, she looked carved out of stone. Only the tightness at the back of her neck gave her away.
“If you want me to step back,” I said, staying just inside the door, “say it outright. Do not pretend it will magically fix this.”
She turned slowly. Her eyes were sharp and exhausted. “Every time you are near me,” she said, each word measured like it hurt to push it out, “they dismantle me twice. Once as a CEO. Once as a woman.”
It landed harder than any accusation she could have thrown.
I let out a breath, tried to keep my voice steady. “Walking away does not erase me from your story,” I said. “Berlin exists. The dock exists. The photo under your pillow exists. They will keep digging whether I am in the frame or not. The only difference is whether you are standing alone when it comes back around.”
She flinched. That tiny movement told me more than if she had shouted. Because she knew. Because she had been alone in rooms like this too many times.
The tension in the air felt like the moment before a breach. Either you went through or you stayed on the safer side and pretended that was enough.
“I am not going to pretend I have not crossed lines,” I said. “Professionally. Personally. I have. I am not going to pretend I do not care about you beyond a contract. I have fallen for you, Sloane. Not the press photos. Not the myth. The woman who fights me over every rule and still picks up a gun when it counts. The way your brain lights up when you are solving something. The way you tried to tape my knuckles after I scraped them.”
Her hands were shaking now. She pressed them into the windowsill.
“I do not have a neat word for it,” I added, quieter. “I just know I am in it. With you.”
She closed her eyes for a second, jaw working. When she opened them, they were bright.
“If I lose this company,” she said, voice low and rough, “I lose the only thing that has ever truly been mine.”
“That stopped being true a long time ago,” I said.
The words hung there between us. Company, yes. But there was also a cabin. A stupid note under her pillow. The way she had reached for me in the dark without thinking.
She did not say she felt the same. She did not tell me to go, either. We just stood there in the half light, all the raw truth spilled between us and nowhere to set it down.
Finally I stepped back. “Whether they let me stand in the doorway or not,” I said, “I am going to protect you.”
I walked out before I reached for her again. The hallway felt narrow, my suit too tight, my skin too thin.
My phone buzzed as the elevator doors slid shut. Ward internal.
Disciplinary review scheduled. Possible reassignment from Mercer account.
They did not need to spell out the threat.
The fight for her was not just in streets and stairwells anymore.
It was in rooms that smelled like toner and fear.