Chapter 104 THE MORNING AFTER THE PROPOSAL

Chapter 104 THE MORNING AFTER THE PROPOSAL

Ava's POV

I woke up the second morning with the ring still on my finger and that hadn't been a dream.

Dominic was already up, which was typical, and I could hear him on a call in the other room, which was also typical, and I lay there and looked at the ring and thought about the car and Adrian turning the radio up and felt something warm settle in my chest that I didn't have a word for yet.

Maya had texted eleven times since six in the morning. I scrolled through them and they escalated from congratulations to venue research to a spreadsheet link by seven forty-five and I put my phone face down and decided to deal with that after coffee.

My mother was in the kitchen when I got there and she looked at my hand and then at my face and said nothing, just put a mug in front of me, and I sat down and she sat across from me and we looked at each other.

"Are you happy," she said.

"Yes," I said.

She nodded once and that was that, the whole conversation, and I drank my coffee and she went back to whatever she was making and I thought about how much had changed and how little some things had.

Nadia arrived at nine with pastries and no apology for the hour, sat next to my mother at the counter and they immediately started talking about something I wasn't following, and Maya arrived twenty minutes later with a laptop already open and a look on her face that meant she had been planning since before most people were awake.

"I have a shared document," she said, sitting down.

"I know," I said. "You sent me the link at seven twelve."

"It has seventeen tabs," she said.

"I saw," I said.

"Tab four is venues," she said, turning the laptop toward me, "and I've narrowed it down to eight but three of them are really the realistic options given Dominic's preference for spaces that aren't accessible to paparazzi, so actually it's more like…"

"Maya," I said.

She looked at me.

"Breathe," I said.

She breathed. Then she pushed the laptop closer and said, "just look at tab four."

I looked at tab four and I had to admit the options were genuinely good and I said so and she visibly relaxed and said, "okay good, because I've also been in contact with two of them already."

"Of course you have," I said.

Dominic came out of the bedroom dressed, phone still in hand, and looked at the scene in the kitchen, Maya and her laptop and Nadia and my mother and the pastries and me, and said nothing for a moment.

"Tab four," I said, pointing at the laptop.

He sat down and looked at it and was quiet for a full minute and Maya watched his face with the focused attention of someone who understood that the person looking at their work was worth several million dollars and had opinions.

"The third one," he said finally.

"That's my favourite too," Maya said immediately.

"Good," he said, and stood up and went back to his phone call.

Maya looked at me and said, "I love him."

"You don't have to tell me," I said.

By mid-morning everyone had cleared out for various reasons and it was just me and Dominic and the penthouse was quiet and he found me standing at the kitchen window looking at New York and came up behind me and put his arms around me from behind.

"How are you feeling," he said against my hair.

"Good," I said. "Really good. Which is strange because my best friend has a seventeen tab spreadsheet about my wedding and that should terrify me."

"It's Maya," he said. "Those tabs are probably colour coded."

"They are," I confirmed.

He made a sound against my hair that was definitely a laugh and I turned around in his arms and looked at him and he looked back and we just stood there for a moment, no agenda, no crisis, just this.

Then his phone buzzed on the counter and he glanced at it and something in his expression shifted.

"What," I said.

"My legal team," he said, picking it up. "There's a situation at the company."

He read and I watched his face go from relaxed to something more contained and said, "how bad."

"Someone has been quietly buying Hayes International shares for six weeks," he said. "Enough to warrant a board response."

"A hostile takeover," I said.

"An attempt at one," he said, and his voice was very even.

I looked at him and said, "so we go to the office."

He looked at me. "You don't have to—"

"I know I don't have to," I said. "I want to. I've never actually seen you in your element properly."

He considered that and said, "get dressed then."



Hayes International was exactly what I expected and nothing I was prepared for.

The building was forty floors of glass and clean lines and the moment we walked through the lobby the energy changed around Dominic in a way I noticed but couldn't fully describe, people straightening, conversations adjusting, a kind of gravitational pull that wasn't fear exactly but was adjacent to it.

I walked beside him and watched it and thought about Club Obsidian and the way the entire floor had paused when he walked in and thought that some things were consistent regardless of setting.

His office was on the thirty-eighth floor and it was large and precise and had a view that made New York look like something designed specifically to be looked at, and he sat down and within four minutes he had three calls running simultaneously and I sat on the sofa across from his desk and watched him work.

He was different here. Not a different person, but a different expression of the same one, more precise, more contained, every word chosen, every pause deliberate, and I watched him and felt something I hadn't expected which was that it was genuinely attractive, the competence of it, the specific authority of someone who had been doing this for decades and knew every angle of every room he walked into.

His PA knocked and said the legal team was ready in the conference room and Dominic stood and looked at me and said, "you're coming?"

"Obviously," I said.

The conference room was long and glass-walled and his legal team was already seated and I sat at the far end and said nothing and watched and the meeting was professional and strategic and complicated and I followed about seventy percent of it which I thought was reasonable.

After two hours the team cleared out and Dominic stood and stretched and I stayed in my chair and he looked at me across the empty room.

"You followed more than you're letting on," he said.

"Sixty percent," I said.

"Seventy," he said.

I smiled and he came around the table and I stood and he kissed me and his hands went to my waist and I kissed him back and the conference room was empty and glass-walled and theoretically visible from the floors of the building opposite.

"Someone could see," I said against his mouth.

"We're forty floors up," he said, and his hand slid to the back of my thigh and lifted slightly and I stepped up onto the edge of the chair behind me and he stepped between my knees.

His mouth went to my throat and I tipped my head back and his hand pushed my skirt up and I grabbed the edge of the table with both hands and his fingers found me and I was already wet and he made a low satisfied sound against my neck.

He worked me slowly, two fingers, deep and curling, his thumb on my clit, and I pressed my lips together hard because the PA was right outside and the glass walls were everywhere and he kept going at that same deliberate pace that he used when he wanted to make sure I had no ability to think about anything else.

I came quietly with my teeth in my lip and his name pressed against the back of my throat and he withdrew and straightened my skirt and we stood there for a moment breathing.

Then his phone rang.

He answered it and listened and his face went completely still in a specific way I recognised and he said, "send her in," and hung up and looked at me and said, "the hostile shareholder has sent a representative."

"Who," I said.

"I don't know yet," he said, and the conference room door opened.

A woman walked in, fifties, sharp suit, silver at her temples, and the moment Dominic saw her he went completely still in a way that had nothing to do with strategy and everything to do with recognition.

She looked at him and then at me and then at my ring and said, "congratulations, Dominic. I hope she knows what she's getting into.”