The world doesn't slow down just because you fall in love.
It doesn't ask if you're ready. It doesn't pause for breath.
And it definitely doesn't care if your heart's still figuring things out.
For the first time in years, Damian Vance wasn't at his office before sunrise.
Instead, he was on Amelia's fire escape, wearing sweatpants, holding two coffees, and looking at the city like it owed him an apology. The sky was a pale watercolor blue, streaked with pink. The street below was still yawning awake—delivery trucks, the clatter of a trash bin, a dog barking somewhere in the distance.
Behind him, Amelia was still asleep.
He liked watching the morning before it knew it was being watched. But mostly, he liked knowing she was near.
Yet even in this calm, something inside him kept buzzing—like a wire stretched too tight. His phone had already buzzed ten times. The board was not happy. Shareholders were "concerned." His assistant, Caleb, had called twice, voice clipped but loyal: "I've fielded the worst of it. But they want a formal statement. Soon."
He hadn't responded.
Because how do you explain to people that for once, you're not playing the game? That this isn't some PR stunt or strategic romance. That you fell in love without permission and had no interest in asking for it.
He took a sip of coffee.
Behind him, the window creaked open. "You're brooding," Amelia mumbled, her voice thick with sleep.
"I am."
"Should I be worried?"
He turned. Her hair was a sleepy halo, and his hoodie swallowed her frame. She was barefoot, blinking at him like the sun was too bright.
"You look like a girl who owns me," he said softly.
"Do I?"
"Absolutely."
She stepped onto the fire escape beside him and accepted her cup. "Then tell me what you're thinking. All of it. No polishing. No headlines. Just Damian."
He looked down at the street. "I've spent my life building something that could outlive me. I've burned years, sacrificed sleep, buried parts of myself so deep I forgot where they went. All so I could stand on a stage and tell people I was 'visionary.' But last night, after I posted about you, I realized... this is the only thing I've done that felt real."
Amelia went still beside him.
He kept going.
"And now the people who helped me build that world are asking if I'm losing control. Because I admitted I love you. Because I didn't spin it. Didn't bury you behind a 'source close to the CEO.'"
She placed a hand gently on his arm. "Then let them ask."
His voice cracked. "What if they make me choose?"
Amelia didn't answer right away.
Because she understood the weight of that fear. It wasn't just about a company. It was about the version of himself he had to be to survive in that world. A version that didn't feel. Didn't risk. Didn't love out loud.
She met his eyes. "Then I hope they know they're asking you to give up the only thing that makes you human."
The words hit harder than he expected.
Because they were true.
She was the only thing that had reminded him he still had a heart to lose.
"I don't want to lose you," he said, quieter than before.
"You won't," she whispered. "Not unless you let go."
They stood there, forehead to forehead, two souls holding each other up in the silence of a city that never cared about love stories.
And still, the world didn't pause.
By noon, Amelia's inbox had exploded again—agents, publishers, influencers begging for interviews, collaborations, gossip. One email even offered her a book deal titled Sleeping with Power: A Memoir by the Girl Who Dated a Billionaire.
She deleted them all.
Then there was the letter slipped under her apartment door.
No return address.
Just five words written in thick, cold ink:
"You don't belong with him."
She stared at it, chest tightening.
A whisper of doubt slithered in.
What if they were right?
What if she was the crack in his empire?
But then the door opened.
Damian stood there, holding a sandwich and a small flowerpot with a tiny, struggling cactus. "Your coffee guy said you forgot this last week," he said. "Told me not to screw it up."
Amelia laughed softly, her heart steadying again.
Because this—him bringing her a cactus with a scowl and a sandwich he didn't know how to make—was real.
And no headline, no whisper, no threat could take that away.
Not if they held on.
Together.