Collin, she wrote, her handwriting steady despite the adrenaline still coursing through her system. Thank you for the calculated risk. It was… illuminating. I need to return to my own ecosystem. —Allison
It was bold—borderline arrogant—but necessary. If she left a number, he'd use it. If she left any trace, Marcus or his associates would follow it. This was her clean exit.
She placed the note on the bedside table, right where his hand would fall when he woke. Then, without a final glance at the imposing silhouette on the bed, she slipped out of the skybox and sealed the door behind her.
The tower's lobby was cavernous and almost reverent in its silence. She ordered a car service; one arrived quickly, no doubt accustomed to elite requests from this address. As the sleek black sedan pulled away, Allison watched the Vance Global skyscraper shrink in the rear window—a monolith representing everything she was both drawn to and wary of in Collin Vance.
She finally had him out of her way. She finally had clarity for Tuesday. The memory was vivid, intoxicating—and now deliberately archived.
She rested her forehead against the cool window and closed her eyes, letting the city lights blur past.
As the car sped toward the residential side of the city, one unsettling thought flickered—then she pushed it aside: she hadn't actually asked for his surname when she thanked him. She'd only known the infamous moniker.
Collin. That was enough. He was Collin Vance, the billionaire. She was Allison Hayes, the merger specialist.
And the story, as far as she was concerned, was over.
Fifteen stories below, in the pristine quiet of the skybox, Collin woke hours later. Sunlight carved clean angles across the room, bright enough to strip away any pretense of calm. He reached for the space beside him—and his hand met nothing but cool linen. His fingers brushed a square of heavy card stock.
He froze. Then sat up sharply, every sense locking into place.
He lifted the note.
Collin. Thank you for the calculated risk. It was… illuminating. I need to return to my own ecosystem. —Allison
He read it once.
Then again.
Then a third time.
A slow, electric smile formed. Not pleased. Not amused. Something far more dangerous.
She was gone. Cleanly. Decisively. Without flinching.
No one did that.
And the fact that she had—the fact that she'd executed such a precise exit—sparked something in him he rarely, if ever, felt:vAn immediate, consuming need to know more.
Most encounters dissolved in his mind before breakfast. He never remembered their names, never cared to. But this—this clarity, this restraint, this sharp, controlled departure—hooked into him like a thread pulled taut.
It wasn't simply intriguing.
It was unacceptable that he knew so little about her.
He picked up his phone.
"Marcus," he said. His voice was too calm to be safe. "Locate her. Full file. Priority override."
Marcus answered instantly. "Already in progress. She's impressive, Cole. VP of Strategy at Thorne & Finch. Allison Hayes."
"Hayes," Collin repeated softly, as though trying to decode the name by sound alone. "Insufficient. I want everything. Decision patterns. Professional alliances. Conflicts. Who she listens to. What she resists. I want the architecture of her mind, Marcus."
A beat. Then Marcus ventured, carefully, "She left early. Walked out completely on her own terms. That's… unusual for you."
"She didn't even leave her number," Collin said, stepping toward the window, gaze locked on the cityscape. "She exercised autonomy. That's far rarer." His voice dropped into something quiet and razor‑focused. "And far more interesting."
The thought lingered. He was used to women staying until morning—lingering, hoping, performing interest they thought he wanted. They clung because of his face, his access, his money. Familiar patterns. Predictable outcomes. Names he forgot before lunch.
But Allison Hayes had broken the pattern cleanly.
She had chosen to walk away.
And that alone made her the most compelling variable he had encountered in years.
The city sprawled below—data, power, and leverage woven into steel and shadow. Somewhere down there, Allison Hayes was moving through her day without hesitation, without looking back, without realizing the effect she had triggered
.
She hadn't disappeared.
She had detonated something in him.
A hunger for understanding. A fixation on her precision. A need to dissect the variables that made her different.
"Tell the team I want her full profile on my desk by the end of the week," he said quietly. "And Marcus—quiet channels. I don't want any ripples."
"Understood."
He ended the call and let the silence settle.
Most people barely registered as data points.
But Allison Hayes had become an anomaly he couldn't stop thinking about.
A pattern he needed to solve. A mind he needed to map. A variable he refused to release.
The skyline blurred in front of him as possibilities branched and recombined in his head—calculations, trajectories, potential intersections.
This wasn't a pursuit anymore.
This was an obsession sharpened into purpose.
And Collin Vance always completed what he became obsessed with.
Always.
He hung up the phone, tossing it onto the bed. He walked to the window, looking down at the city that bowed to algorithms and capital. Allison Hayes thought she had escaped by disappearing back into her 'ecosystem.' She was wrong. She hadn't disappeared. She had merely provided him with a new, and infinitely more interesting, acquisition target. The game had just begun.