The door opened on Adrian Blackwell, rain-dark suit, eyes sharp from too little sleep. For a moment, the storm outside seemed to bow to the one standing in my doorway.
"You hesitated," he said.
"I was thinking." My voice sounded smaller than I wanted.
"Thinking gets people killed in this building," he replied. Then, softer: "But at least you opened."
Trust no one but me. The note still burned in my pocket, paper like a second pulse.
"May I come in?"
It wasn't really a question. He stepped inside, closed the door, and the hotel room shrank by half.
"I don't usually hold strategy sessions in interns' rooms," he said, scanning the space once, clinical. "But after tonight, you don't sleep alone."
My chest clenched. "That sounds—"
"Security," he interrupted. "Not seduction. Unless you want to tell me the difference."
My breath caught. He knew exactly what his words did. He always knew.
He sat at the desk, long lines folding into the chair like it had been built for him. I hovered near the bed, unsure what shape to take.
"Your father escalates tomorrow," he said. "He's calling a press conference. Already leaked an invite to half of Wall Street."
I closed my eyes. Of course he did.
"They'll paint me as the predator. You as the victim. Him as the martyr." Adrian's voice was calm, surgical. "We can counter, but only if you stand beside me."
"Beside you?" I asked.
He leaned forward. "In the office. In the cameras. In the room. Every look you give me will be read as confession or denial. If you flinch, he wins."
"What if I can't do it?"
His eyes held mine. "Then I lose you."
The words slammed into me, heavier than contracts, sharper than gossip. My body forgot how to breathe for one impossible second.
I whispered, "And if I don't want you to?"
Something cracked in his expression. Not control—he never lost that—but restraint. He stood, slow, like gravity had agreed to bend.
"You're young," he said, stepping closer. "Too young to carry this. Too young to know what it means to stand with a man like me."
"I'm old enough to know I'm tired of being used," I shot back. "By the press, by HR, by my father. At least with you, I know the rules."
We were inches apart now. His cologne, sharp and clean, mixed with rain still clinging to him. My heart battered against my ribs, begging to be reckless.
"You shouldn't look at me like that," he murmured.
"Like what?"
"Like you already broke rule three."
Don't fall in love with me.
My breath trembled. "Maybe rules are made to be broken."
His hand rose, slow, deliberate, until his fingers brushed a damp strand of hair from my cheek. My skin burned under the touch. The room tilted forward, gravity pulling us into a space with no witnesses.
For a second—just a second—the world held still. His lips hovered a breath from mine, temptation written in the air between us.
Then he stopped. His palm pressed gently against my jaw, firm enough to hold me in place, gentle enough to remind me who held control.
"No," he said, voice low and rough. "Not like this. Not when your father is using you as bait."
The spell snapped, leaving me shivering.
"Tomorrow," he said, stepping back, "we fight him. After that—" His eyes lingered on me like a promise and a warning all at once. "—then we'll see which rules survive."
Morning cracked open with cameras outside the hotel. Headlines screamed louder than the rain. Ethan arrived with a laptop under one arm and urgency in his voice.
"Daniel Carter scheduled his press conference for noon. He's going for the throat. Already calling Adrian's mentorship a cover for coercion."
Adrian's jaw tightened. "Classic Daniel. Project his sins on someone else's name."
Ethan placed the laptop on the desk and spun it toward us. "He's live."
On screen, my father filled the podium, hair silvered but eyes burning with practiced fire.
"My daughter," he said, voice thick, "is nineteen. Impressionable. Plucked from obscurity by a man with power enough to warp anyone's story. This is not mentorship—it is manipulation. This is not opportunity—it is coercion. And I will not stand by while my family's name is dragged through Blackwell's games."
Applause scattered through the crowd. Cameras flashed.
My knees buckled, and I sat hard on the bed. "He's—he's destroying me."
Adrian crouched in front of me, his hand steadying mine. "No. He's destroying himself. If you let him."
"How do we stop him?"
"By telling a better story." His eyes bored into mine. "Yours. Ours. Together."
"Together?"
"Stand beside me," he said again. "In front of the cameras. In front of him. Let the world see whose game this really is."
And in that moment, with my father's accusations echoing through the laptop and Adrian's hand warm against mine, I realized the line between strategy and something far more dangerous was already gone.