Chapter 38 THIRTY-EIGHT
Lennox woke to sunlight slicing through unfamiliar curtains and immediately knew something was different. Wrong. Not wrong exactly but... changed.
Then she remembered.
The bed beside her was empty, sheets cool. She sat up, pulling the blanket around herself, and found Callum across the room. Already dressed. Full suit, tie, hair perfect. Like last night hadn't happened at all.
He was staring at his phone but not really looking at it. Just holding it. His jaw was tight, shoulders tense.
"Hey," she said quietly.
He turned. Their eyes met and something complicated passed between them. Want, maybe. Regret. Confusion. All of it at once.
"Morning." His voice was careful. Neutral. "I didn't want to wake you."
"What time is it?"
"Seven. I have a breakfast meeting at eight thirty."
"Right. Of course." She clutched the blanket tighter. "Business."
Silence. Heavy and awkward in a way it hadn't been for days.
Callum set his phone down, ran a hand through his hair. Messing it up slightly. That tell again. "Last night..."
Her stomach dropped. "Yeah?"
"We should probably..." He stopped. Started again. "We should talk about what that means."
What it means. Like it was a business transaction they needed to define.
"Okay," she said. "What does it mean?"
"I don't know. That's why we need to talk."
"So talk."
"I can't right now. I have this meeting and then conference calls until three and..." He checked his watch. "I need to leave in ten minutes."
"Right. Okay. Later then."
"Later. Yes. We'll talk later." He grabbed his briefcase, hesitated by the door. "Lennox..."
His phone rang. Loud and jarring in the quiet room.
He looked at it, swore under his breath. "It's Richard. I have to take this."
"Take it."
He answered. "Richard, what's wrong?" His expression shifted immediately. Business mode activated. "What do you mean they're pulling out? We had an agreement... No, don't do anything. I'm on my way."
He hung up, already moving. "One of the deals is falling apart. I have to go fix this."
"Go. It's fine."
"We'll talk tonight. On the flight home. Okay?"
"Okay."
He left. Door closing with a soft click that somehow felt final.
Lennox sat there in the empty suite, wrapped in expensive sheets, trying not to spiral.
We should talk about what that means.
Not "I'm glad that happened" or "I've been wanting to do that for months" or anything that suggested he didn't regret it.
Just frustratingly polite. Careful. Like he was already putting distance between them.
She showered, got dressed, tried to eat the breakfast room service brought up. Everything tasted like ash.
Her phone buzzed. Text from Callum: Meeting running long. Might be late for our flight. I'll keep you posted.
No mention of last night. No mention of the conversation they were supposed to have.
She spent the day wandering the city without really seeing it. Kept replaying everything. The way he'd kissed her. Touched her. Said her name like a prayer. The way he'd held her after, like he couldn't bear to let go.
That had been real. She knew it had been real, she felt it in her bones.
But maybe real didn't matter if he regretted it in the morning.
Her phone buzzed again around three. Crisis handled. We're still on for the 6pm flight.
She texted back: Okay.
That was it. The entire conversation.
By the time the car picked her up at five, she'd convinced herself this was a disaster. They'd crossed a line they couldn't uncross and now everything was ruined. The careful balance they'd found, the almost-friendship, all of it destroyed because she couldn't keep her hands to herself.
Because they couldn't keep their hands off each other.
Callum was already at the hangar when she arrived, on his phone, pacing. He looked stressed. Exhausted. When he saw her he ended the call quickly.
"Hey. Sorry about today. It was..."
"Busy. I know. It's fine."
They boarded in silence. The same plane from just days ago that had felt intimate and charged. Now it just felt small. Suffocating.
Lennox took her seat by the window. Callum sat across from her like before but it felt different now. Like there was an ocean between them instead of three feet.
The plane took off. She stared out the window at San Francisco disappearing below them. Wondered if she'd ever come back. If she'd always associate this city with the best and worst decision she'd ever made.
"Do you want something to drink?" the flight attendant asked.
"Water's fine," Lennox said.
"Same," Callum added.
The attendant left. They sat in silence that felt heavier with every passing minute.
She couldn't do this. Couldn't sit here for five hours pretending everything was fine when it clearly wasn't.
"Are you going to say something?" she asked finally. "Or are we just going to ignore what happened?"
Callum looked up from his laptop. "I'm not ignoring it."
"Could've fooled me."
"I've been handling a crisis all day, Lennox. I haven't had time to..."
"To what? To figure out how to let me down easy? To explain why having sex was a mistake?"
"I didn't say it was a mistake."
"You didn't say it wasn't either."
He closed his laptop. Rubbed his face with both hands. "I don't know what to say. This morning I wanted to talk but there wasn't time and then the whole day got away from me and now we're here and I still don't know what to say."
"How about the truth? Do you regret it?"
"No." The word came out fast. Definite. "No, I don't regret it."
Something in her chest loosened slightly. "Then what?"
"I don't know what happens now. We have rules. Boundaries. This was supposed to be..."
"Fake. I know. Believe me, I know." She looked away. "But it didn't feel fake last night."
"No. It didn't."
More silence. But different this time. Less hostile, more uncertain.
"So what do we do?" she asked quietly.
"I don't..." He stopped. "I need to think. Process. This changes everything and I just need some time to figure out what that means."
Time. Right. Because thinking had worked so well for them so far.
The flight stretched on. Both of them pretending to work, to read, to do anything except acknowledge the elephant in the cabin. Stealing glances when the other wasn't looking. Wanting to say something but not knowing what.
As they descended into New York, the city lights spreading below them like a familiar prison, Callum finally closed his laptop.
"Lennox." His voice was quiet. Serious. "About last night…"
The plane touched down. Rolled to a stop at the private terminal.
And through the window, Lennox saw someone waiting on the tarmac. Tall, dark hair, expensive coat.
Cole.
"Is that your brother?" she asked.
Callum leaned over to look, frowned. "What's he doing here?"
They got down. Cole was there immediately, face grim.
"We have a problem," he said without preamble. "There's been a security breach. Someone's been accessing our servers, pulling financial data."
Lennox's stomach dropped. She kept her face carefully neutral.
"What kind of data?" Callum asked.
"Everything. Contracts, account information, proprietary project details. IT caught it an hour ago but whoever it was covered their tracks well. We need to figure out how deep this goes."
"When did it start?"
"That's the thing. They think it's been happening for months. Maybe longer." Cole glanced at Lennox briefly, then back to Callum. "We need to loop in cybersecurity tonight. Get ahead of this before it becomes a nightmare."
Callum's jaw tightened. "Now?"
"Now. This can't wait."
Lennox watched the conversation she desperately needed slip away. Again. And worse, watched Cole talk about the exact thing she'd been doing, just described as a threat instead of investigation.
"Go," she said, trying to keep her voice steady. "Handle it. We can talk later."
Callum looked like he wanted to argue but Cole was already pulling at his arm, still talking. "The forensics team is waiting. We need to see what they've accessed and whether any client data is compromised."
"Lennox..." Callum started.
"It's fine. Really. This sounds important."
He hesitated, looking between her and Cole. "Marcus will take you home. I'll... I'll call you later. Or come by when we're done. I don't know how long this will take."
"Whenever. It's fine."
It wasn't fine. Nothing about this was fine.
Cole was already walking toward a waiting car, phone to his ear. Callum glanced back at her once, something apologetic and frustrated in his expression.
Then he was gone, and Lennox was standing there alone on the tarmac with her bags and secrets that suddenly felt a lot more dangerous.
Marcus appeared. "Mrs. Westbrook? I'll get your bags."
"Thanks, Marcus."
The drive back to the penthouse was quiet. She stared out the window at the city passing by, mind racing.
A security breach. Someone accessing their servers for months.
They were very most likely talking about her. They just didn't know it yet.
And Callum, the man she'd just slept with, the man whose company she was investigating, was about to spend the night trying to find whoever had hacked into his system.
Trying to find her.
She pressed her forehead against the cool glass and tried not to panic.
She knew they wouldn’t be able to trace her enough to make the connection but this was a rude awakening. She had no true place beside Callum Westbrook, no matter how infuriatingly handsome he was.
She needed to remember who she was.