Chapter 77
Evelyn's POV
The Titan garage on sublevel three was a study in controlled paranoia—concrete pillars reinforced with steel, biometric scanners every twenty feet, cameras tracking every angle. I arrived at twelve forty exactly, five minutes early because I'd learned long ago that punctuality was its own kind of armor.
Julian's Mercedes was already there, idling near the elevator bank. Black on black, windows tinted dark enough to be illegal. The kind of car that announced its owner didn't give a fuck about traffic laws because he had lawyers who made problems disappear.
I walked over in my Louboutins, each step echoing off concrete, and tried not to think about how this was a terrible idea. Going to Adrian's office. With Julian. After everything that had happened between the three of us in the past forty-eight hours.
The passenger door swung open before I reached it.
"You're early," Julian said from the driver's seat. His voice was flat, professional, like we were just business associates meeting for a routine appointment.
Like he hadn't been inside me two nights ago. Like I hadn't kicked him out and broken something between us that might not be fixable.
"So are you," I replied, sliding into the passenger seat and closing the door with more force than necessary.
The interior smelled like leather and his cologne—something dark and expensive that I was trying very hard not to associate with the way his mouth had felt on my skin. I buckled my seatbelt and stared straight ahead, hyperaware of his presence in the confined space, of the way his hands rested on the steering wheel with that casual confidence that made me want to either punch him or pull him closer.
Neither of which was acceptable right now.
Julian put the car in gear and we pulled out of the garage in silence. The route to Winthrop Heavy Industries would take us through midtown traffic, probably forty minutes at this time of day. Forty minutes trapped in this car with him, pretending everything was fine.
I lasted maybe five.
"We need to establish parameters," I said, keeping my eyes on the windshield as we merged onto the street. "For today."
"Parameters." His tone was carefully neutral, but I caught the slight tightening of his jaw. "Go ahead."
"We're there for the files. Nothing else." I forced myself to sound clinical, detached. "We review the contract documents, identify any patterns that might point to who orchestrated the frame-up, and leave. We don't—" I stopped, hating how difficult this was. "We don't do anything that would raise questions about why we're really there together."
"You mean we don't act like we've fucked."
The words hit like a slap. I turned to stare at him, at the sharp line of his profile as he navigated through traffic with the kind of precision that suggested he was channeling frustration into vehicle control.
"That's not what I—"
"It's exactly what you meant." He didn't look at me, just kept his eyes on the road, but his knuckles were white on the steering wheel. "You're worried Adrian will figure it out. That he'll see the way I look at you and know." A pause, heavy with something that might have been anger or hurt or both. "You're worried he'll be disappointed in you."
"I'm worried," I bit out, "that walking into his office with you is going to hurt him. That seeing us together—even professionally—is going to remind him of everything that went wrong." I turned back to the windshield, throat tight. "He doesn't deserve that."
"And what about what you deserve?"
The question caught me off guard. I didn't have an answer, so I said nothing.
Julian was quiet for a long moment, maneuvering through an intersection with more aggression than strictly necessary. Then, in a voice that was almost carefully controlled: "I'm not going to make this harder for you than it already is."
I glanced at him sharply. "What?"
"Today." His jaw was still tight, but his tone had shifted into something closer to resignation. "At Winthrop. I'll keep it professional. I won't—" He stopped, took a breath. "I won't do anything to make Adrian think there's something between us."
The relief that flooded through me was immediate and unwelcome, because it meant I'd been genuinely afraid he would. That he'd use this meeting as an opportunity to stake some kind of claim, to make Adrian jealous, to force my hand.
But apparently Julian had limits to his bastard behavior after all.
"Thank you," I said quietly.
"Don't thank me." His voice was flat again. "I'm doing it because you asked. Not because I think you're right." He shifted lanes with unnecessary force. "You're not, by the way. Right. You're just scared."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to insist I wasn't scared, I was being practical, I was protecting people I cared about from unnecessary pain.
But he'd already turned back to the road, effectively ending the conversation.
We drove in silence for another ten minutes. I watched Manhattan slide past the windows—glass towers and luxury boutiques and people who had no idea they were sharing streets with a former assassin and a mercenary CEO on their way to investigate a political conspiracy.
"He's going to know anyway," Julian said suddenly.
I turned to look at him. "What?"
"Adrian." Julian's eyes were still on the road, but there was something in his voice that made my chest tighten. "He's going to take one look at you and know something's changed. You can't hide that kind of thing from someone who knows you that well."
"I've been hiding things from him for seven years," I pointed out.
"Not like this." He glanced at me briefly, gray eyes sharp. "Not when you're different now. When you've let someone see you and you can't quite put the mask back on properly." A pause. "He'll notice. And he'll wonder."
The certainty in his voice made me uneasy, because I suspected he was right. Adrian had always been able to read me, even when I thought I was being careful. Even when I'd spent years perfecting the art of hiding.
"Then I'll deal with it," I said.
"Will you?" Julian's tone was almost curious. "Because from where I'm sitting, you're still trying to convince yourself that keeping everyone separate is somehow going to work. That you can compartmentalize your life into neat little boxes where nobody gets hurt." He took a turn with more force than necessary. "Newsflash, Evelyn—it doesn't work that way. Sooner or later, everything collides. And when it does, you're going to have to choose."
"I'm not choosing anyone," I said sharply. "There's nothing to choose. You and I—" I stopped, hating how my voice wavered. "What happened between us was a mistake. A moment of weakness. It doesn't change anything."
"Keep telling yourself that."