The diplomatic reception at Versailles had been a resounding professional success, but a public relations disaster in the making. By the time Ava and Julian returned to the Hôtel de Crillon, the global press had already digested and spun the images captured moments after Julian's finger had brushed Ava's arm.
Julian was on a rapid-fire conference call with his London and New York PR teams when Ava walked into the external lounge the following morning. He was speaking in a low, furious staccato into a headset, his usual calm shattered by genuine corporate alarm.
"I don't care about the angle," Julian snapped. "I care about the implication. 'Bound by Fire' is an unacceptable headline. It implies a personal relationship that compromises the neutrality of the Protocol. You manage the narrative, I manage the content. Get those images buried."
He ended the call with a frustrated groan and ripped the headset off, tossing it onto the table. When he looked up, Ava was standing in the doorway, impeccably dressed and radiating controlled fury.
"You look distressed, Julian," Ava observed, her voice as sharp as his tailored collar. "Did the press finally catch up to your ethics, or just your terrible taste in headlines?"
"Don't play innocent, Ava. This is your doing as much as mine," Julian shot back, running a hand through his perfectly sculpted hair. "The photos from last night specifically the one where you are looking at me as if I were a legal loophole you were about to exploit—are everywhere. They are leveraging our courtroom rivalry to suggest a relationship of convenience."
Ava walked to the table and slammed a folded copy of a British tabloid onto the mahogany. The headline screamed: IS THE BILLIONAIRE BUYING HIS BARRISTER?
"This is not a 'relationship of convenience,' Julian. This is damage," Ava spat out. "My reputation is built on principle. Yours is built on capital. Do you have any idea how disastrous this narrative is for a female barrister of colour? It's not 'chemistry.' It's the implication that I am either selling my integrity for access or, worse, that I am sleeping my way into political relevance!"
Julian stood up, towering over the table. His eyes were cold, but there was a flicker of genuine distress beneath his anger.
"I understand the gendered prejudice you are facing, Ava, believe me. But panic will not solve it. We established the tension. This is the price of proximity. We are high-profile individuals co-leading a sensitive, political mandate. The press will always seek the scandal. Our only recourse is absolute, frigid, public distance until the conference is concluded."
"Distance is not enough," Ava countered, her voice shaking slightly with the injustice of it all. "Your PR team is running damage control based on your risk profile protecting your investors. What are you doing to protect mine?"
"What do you suggest?" Julian challenged. "A joint press release denying any knowledge of human attraction? They won't believe it, Ava. Because the tension is real. Even now, arguing with me over corporate strategy, you are radiating a passion that is far beyond the limits of your professional brief."
He moved toward her, slowly, deliberately. "The press sees what the public craves: two people with this much shared ambition who hate each other this intensely. The next step is always the same."
He stopped just a foot away, the air between them sizzling with suppressed energy. "A scandal is a calculated risk. I am calculating the damage. You are panicking because you believe this exposure is a failure of your control."
Ava refused to break eye contact. "It is a failure of control, Julian. Yours and mine. But I will not allow your strategy to define my worth."
"Then change the strategy," he murmured, his gaze dropping to her mouth. "Give them a different narrative. You hate me. I tried to buy you. We are professional adversaries who must, for the sake of the Protocol, appear unified. That is the truth. The rest is fiction we must deny with ferocity."
Ava took a step back, breaking the dangerous proximity. She needed distance, both physical and emotional.
"I will issue a statement from my chambers," Ava decided, her voice regaining its professional steel. "It will be succinct, legalistic, and utterly boring. It will dismiss the claims of a relationship as beneath comment and focus solely on the gravity of the work. You will issue a matching statement from Thornfield Innovations emphasizing the gravity of my legal contribution and your reliance on my neutrality."
Julian watched her, a slow, approving grin spreading across his face. "Excellent. You've stopped being the woman consumed by emotion and returned to the barrister who operates with surgical logic. I find that much more compelling."
"I don't care what you find compelling, Julian. I care about the integrity of my name."
"Integrity is a luxury, Ava. Reputation is a weapon." Julian walked to his suite door. "Get your statement drafted. We have the African delegation briefing in two hours. We will be an hour late, and we will walk in side-by-side, radiating mutual annoyance and professional deference. We are partners in this drama. Let's play our roles impeccably."
He closed the door, leaving Ava alone in the lounge, simmering with resentment and a chilling recognition of his genius for crisis management. He had turned the media's prurience into another opportunity to showcase their unassailable professional front.
For the remainder of the day, their tension was the third, invisible party in every room they entered.
They maintained the frigid, public distance perfectly. Their conversation was limited to clipped, precise exchanges about data models and legal language. Yet, the energy between them was palpable. When Ava presented her legal framework to the African Union delegates, she could feel Julian's eyes on her, not judging, but assessing every nuance of her delivery. When he took over to discuss funding structures, his voice seemed to be speaking only to her, explaining his ruthless logic as if seeking her silent approval.
The professionalism was flawless, but it was suffocating. The tension was compounding, warping every glance, every shared silence, into a form of perverse foreplay.
That evening, during a shared dinner in the lounge ordered to maintain security and prevent further media mishaps the exhaustion hit both of them. They ate in near silence, the only sound the gentle clinking of silverware.
"The Asian delegation briefing tomorrow is critical," Ava finally broke the silence, her voice tired. "They are demanding a more robust arbitration clause on the data storage provisions. We need to agree on the non-negotiables before the meeting."
"I agree," Julian said, setting down his fork. He looked genuinely exhausted, the harsh angles of his face softened by the fatigue. He didn't look like a Gentleman Shark; he looked like a man carrying the weight of a dynasty.
"Tell me, Julian," Ava asked, surprising herself with the softness of her tone. "Why the need for such absolute control in everything? In your business, in your PR, even in your choice of cutlery."
Julian paused, looking directly at her. He didn't offer a flippant corporate reply. He offered a glimpse into the trauma that drove him.
"Control is not a preference, Ava," he said quietly. "It is a defense. My father lost everything because he was trusting and empathetic. He thought people operated on honor. When he was betrayed by his closest associate, it didn't just cost us a company; it cost him his peace, and ultimately, his life. I learned, very early, that power is the only language people respect. And power, true power, is nothing without absolute control of the variables."
Ava felt a genuine stab of pain for the boy he had been. Her father's firm had been lost to corruption; Julian's father had been lost to betrayal. They were defined by the same void.
"My father lost his firm to corruption, too," Ava admitted, leaning forward slightly. The shared secret was a heavy, warm blanket against the Parisian chill. "I saw how quickly principle can be crushed by ruthlessness. I chose the law to ensure that never happens to me. I wear the armor, too, Julian. My control is my peace."
Julian's eyes narrowed, not in challenge, but in recognition. "We are not so different after all, Barrister. We are both architects of our own fortresses. And we both know that the greatest danger to a fortress is not an external siege, but a betrayal from within."
He stood, carrying his plate to the trolley, the professional distance returning instantly. "Get some sleep, Ava. We build the final wall of the Protocol tomorrow."
As he walked toward his bolted door, Ava watched him. She knew that her father's firm and his mother's company had been tied together in some deep, past legal complexity a tie she hadn't yet untangled.
She knew they shared more than ambition. They shared a wound.
And tonight, in Paris, separated only by thin, ornate wood, they had confessed to their shared trauma. The heat was no longer just competitive. It was empathetic. And that was the most dangerous attraction of all.