I stood in my home office staring at a photograph on my computer screen at 6:47 AM, and I was
having what I could only describe as a crisis.
The photograph was from the Meridian party last night. It was a candid shot taken by one of the
event photographers—the kind of thing they always took even though nobody wanted them. In
it, I was dancing with a woman. We were close. Too close. Her head was tilted back, and I was
looking at her like she was the only thing that mattered.
I looked like an idiot. I looked like someone who'd completely lost control.
I'd been awake for two hours. Two hours of pacing my apartment, trying to figure out when
exactly I'd become the kind of man who made stupid decisions.
The answer was: last night, at approximately 10:15 PM.
I pulled up the party guest list again. I'd already checked it three times, but I was hoping
somehow the information would be different. It wasn't.
Sienna Voss. CEO of Voss Publishing.
Thirty years of age.
Divorced. Lives in Queens. Took over the family business five years ago when her father died.
Company is currently worth approximately forty million dollars, which is a significant drop from
what it was worth three years ago. She's made some catastrophically bad decisions. The
Meridian Press acquisition was particularly stupid.
I had a file on her. An actual file. Because I'd been contracted to acquire her company and
dismantle it for parts. I had analysts studying her decisions. I had a timeline for how to approach
the acquisition. I had a plan.
And then I'd decided to fuck her instead.
I closed the file and poured myself a drink. It was 6:47 in the morning. Drinking at 6:47 in the
morning was the kind of thing people did when they'd made a terrible mistake.
I'd known something was off the moment I'd seen her. Not because she looked like she didn't
belong—though she didn't. But because she looked like she was playing a game, the same way
I was always playing a game. Like we both understood that everyone was pretending to be
something they weren't, and we were just slightly better at the pretending than most people.
I should have left the party when Miranda didn't show up. I had a strict rule about not getting
personally entangled with business acquisitions. I had a strict rule about not letting anyone
distract me from what mattered. I had a strict rule about keeping my personal life completely
separate from my professional life.
I'd broken all three rules in the span of approximately six hours.
The worst part was that I didn't regret it.
She'd felt incredible. Not just physically—though that too—but the way she'd responded to me.
The way she'd kissed me like she was drowning and I was oxygen. The way she'd said my
name like it was a prayer.
And the entire time, I'd been unknowingly fucking the CEO of a company I was supposed to be
destroying.
I stood at my window and watched the city wake up below me. Somewhere down there, she
was probably just realizing who I was. Somewhere down there, her business partner was
probably panicking. Somewhere down there, her company was probably experiencing the kind
of existential crisis that comes from realizing that your CEO spent the night with the man who
was trying to acquire you.
My phone buzzed. My assistant, Emily.
*Your 9 AM is waiting in Conference Room B.
*
Right. I had a meeting. I had a company to run. I had a life that didn't include getting emotionally
compromised by a woman who'd spent all night lying to me.
Except she hadn't been lying. Not about everything. Her name was actually Sienna. When she
kissed me, that was genuine. When she'd gasped my name while we were fucking against my
window, that wasn't an act.
The only thing she'd lied about was who she was. And I'd known who she was before I'd
brought her to my apartment.
I looked at the photograph again. At the way I was looking at her. And I made a decision that
would probably destroy both our lives.
I called my assistant back.
"Cancel my 9 AM. Cancel everything until 2 PM. I need to handle something.
"
"Mr. Ashford, the Harrington Group—
"
"I said cancel it, Emily.
"
I hung up before she could argue.
Then I sat down at my desk and opened up all the files I had on Sienna Voss. Not the
professional ones. The personal ones. The ones that detailed her life, her finances, her
vulnerabilities.
According to my analysts, her company was going to collapse within six months without external
investment. Her CFO was embezzling money. Her best business decision had been made under
duress because she didn't have time to properly analyze the market. She was drowning, and
she knew it, and she was hoping desperately that something would save her.
Last night, she'd hoped it would be a one-night stand with a stranger.
Instead, it had been a one-night stand with the man who held her entire company's future in his
hands.
I pulled up the acquisition proposal my team had been working on. We were planning to acquire
Voss Publishing at a significantly discounted rate, liquidate the unprofitable divisions, and
integrate the valuable imprints into our existing structure. It was a smart move. It would make
me money.
It would also destroy her.
Normally, that wouldn't have bothered me. Destruction was part of business. People made bad
decisions, companies failed, people lost their jobs. That was capitalism. That was how the
system worked.
But I kept seeing the way she'd looked at me when I'd kissed her. Like I was something she'd
been searching for without knowing it.
And I kept remembering what it had felt like to touch her, to taste her, to be inside her. How real
it had been. How right it had felt.
Which was the problem. Because I didn't do real. I didn't do feelings. I did strategic advantages
and market positioning and profit margins.
I looked back at the photograph. At the expression on my face.
I looked like my father had looked, right before he'd made the decision that destroyed our family.
My father had been a venture capitalist. A good one. He'd built a company from nothing, turned
it into something worth billions. He'd taught me that sentiment was a weakness, that the only
thing that mattered was winning, that personal relationships would only distract you from what
was important.
Then he'd met a woman. She was young—too young. She was beautiful—too beautiful. She
was the kind of distraction that destroys empires.
He'd abandoned his company for her. He'd neglected his family. He'd made decisions based on
what would make her happy instead of what would make business sense.
His company had collapsed within two years. His marriage had dissolved within three. He'd died
when I was twenty-two, broke and bitter and wondering why he'd thrown everything away for
something as temporary as love.
I'd built my entire life on not being like him. On never letting anything distract me. On
understanding that the only thing you could rely on was power, and the only way to keep power
was to never let anyone get close enough to take it away.
And last night, I'd fucked that entire philosophy by spending the night with a woman who'd lied
to me about who she was.
---
She was still asleep when I'd gotten up this morning. I'd stood in the doorway of my bedroom
and watched her sleep, and I'd felt something shift inside me. Something that felt like danger.
I should have woken her up. Should have told her to leave. Should have started managing the
situation before it got worse.
Instead, I'd let her sleep. I'd made coffee. I'd stood in my kitchen looking out at the city and
thinking about how to destroy her without destroying myself in the process.
Because I was going to destroy her. I had to. The acquisition was already in motion. My team
had already started the due diligence. I couldn't just abandon it because I'd gotten distracted by
her.
But maybe I could do it in a way that minimized the damage. Maybe I could salvage some of her
company. Maybe I could make sure she didn't lose everything.
Maybe I could pretend that this was about business and not about the fact that I was terrified of
becoming my father.
My phone buzzed again. Emily.
*Mr. Ashford, Marcus Chen from Voss Publishing is calling. He says it's urgent.
*
Marcus Chen. Sienna's business partner. The one she'd been texting with last night.
I answered on the second ring.
"Dominic Ashford,
" I said.
"This is Marcus Chen,
" he said. His voice sounded panicked.
"I know this is unorthodox, but I
need to know if your firm is acquiring Voss Publishing.
"
I could have lied. I could have said no, that we were just exploring potential synergies. I could
have bought myself more time.
Instead, I told him the truth.
"We're interested,
" I said.
There was a long silence on the other end.
"What does that mean?" Marcus asked.
"It means I'm willing to talk about it. But not with you. With Sienna.
"
"Sienna's not—she's not available right now.
"
She was asleep in my bed. He didn't know that. He just knew that his CEO was missing and his
company was being acquired.
"Then I suggest you have her call me,
" I said.
"Within the next two hours.
"
I hung up before he could respond.
Then I went back to my bedroom to wake her up.
She was sprawled across my bed, still tangled in my sheets, and for a second—just a second—I
let myself imagine a different version of this story. One where I wasn't a ruthless businessman
who destroyed companies for profit. One where she wasn't the CEO of a company I was
contracted to acquire. One where we could just be two people who'd met and felt something
real.
But that wasn't our story.
I sat down on the edge of the bed and watched her wake up. I watched her eyes flutter open. I
watched the exact moment when she remembered what had happened. And I watched the
exact moment when that memory turned into panic.
"Morning,
" I said, like I hadn't just spent the last two hours deciding how to destroy her.
She looked at me like I was a puzzle she couldn't solve. Like she was trying to figure out if I was
real or if I was some kind of fever dream.
"I have a 9 AM meeting,
" I lied.
"You should stay. Or go home and pack a bag, come back.
Either way.
"
I was already manipulating her. Already trying to keep her close so I could control the situation.
It was exactly what my father would have done.
She said she should go. I told her no. I asked her where she worked.
She lied and said she was between jobs.
I knew she was lying. I knew everything about her because I'd had my team investigate her. I
knew her salary, her credit score, her relationship history. I knew that her father's death had
devastated her. I knew that she was desperate to save her company and terrified that she was
going to fail.
I asked her name anyway. Just to see what she would do.
"Sienna,
" she said. And something in her voice told me that this, at least, was true.
I kissed her because I didn't know what else to do with the feeling that was building inside my
chest. A feeling that I'd been trained my entire life to avoid. A feeling that threatened everything
I'd built.
Later, after we'd had sex again, after I'd felt her come apart underneath me, after I'd held her
against me like I was trying to absorb her into my body, I excused myself to my office.
I needed to be away from her. I needed to think clearly. I needed to remember that this was
business.
Instead, I found myself pulling up her file again. Looking at the decisions she'd made. Seeing
the places where she'd chosen compassion over profit. Where she'd decided that keeping
people's jobs was more important than maximizing shareholder value.
She was going to fail. That was certain. She didn't have the killer instinct that business required.
She was too human.
And somehow, that made me want to protect her more.
I was staring at the file, trying to figure out how to manage this situation without destroying
myself in the process, when I heard her phone ring.
Through the closed door of my office, I could hear her voice. She sounded confused at first.
Then terrified.
"Dominic Ashford—do you know who he is? His firm is making moves. I think he's acquiring us. I
think we're done.
"
There it was. Marcus had told her. She knew who I was.
I waited to feel relieved. I waited to feel like the situation was finally under control.
Instead, I felt something that might have been guilt.
She didn't call out for me. Didn't come to find me. I could hear her sitting in my kitchen, probably
trying to process what she'd just learned.
I should have felt satisfied. I'd kept my business separate from my personal life—or at least, I
was about to. I was going to acquire her company. I was going to become exactly like my father.
Except I was pretty sure my father had never sat in his office wondering how to save the life of
the woman he was about to destroy.
I stood up and walked back to the kitchen.
She was sitting at my counter with her coffee, and she looked like someone who'd just realized
their entire world was ending.
When she saw me, I watched her process everything. The betrayal. The manipulation. The fact
that I'd known exactly who she was the entire time.
"You knew,
" she said. Not a question.
"Yes,
" I said.
And then I waited for her to leave. Waited for her to call me a monster. Waited for her to hate
me.
"You knew,
" she said. Not a question.
"Yes,
" I said.
And then I waited for her to leave. Waited for her to call me a monster. Waited for her to hate
me.
Instead, she just looked at me with an expression I couldn't quite read.
"Are you going to destroy me?" she asked.
I should have said yes. Should have told her that this was business and business was business
and nothing personal mattered.
"I don't know,
" I said instead.
And that was the truth. Because for the first time in my adult life, I genuinely didn't know what I was going to do.