Eleanor's POV
The security guard tackled Sebastian before he could raise the gun.
Eleanor watched it happen in slow motion. Security had been positioned on every floor ever since her appointment as CEO. Protocols in place. Safeguards ready. The guard came out of nowhere and slammed Sebastian against the wall with enough force to knock the breath out of him.
The gun dropped to the floor.
Everything after that was chaos. Police arriving. Sebastian being arrested. Questions being asked. Eleanor standing in the middle of it all feeling completely numb.
Harrison tried to reach for her but she walked away.
She couldn't process his concern right now. Couldn't accept his presence. Couldn't let herself feel anything except the exhaustion of the past week finally crashing down on her.
By the time the police left with Sebastian in custody, it was late afternoon. Eleanor sent everyone home and returned to her office to sit in silence.
That's when her assistant knocked and told her the news.
"Mr. Blake approved all of your restructuring proposals," the assistant said carefully. "No changes. No opposition. He approved everything this morning."
Eleanor felt something crack inside her chest.
She'd won.
She'd actually won. He'd looked at her recommendations and understood that she was right about everything. That his way was wrong. That his company was broken and she was going to fix it. He'd surrendered completely.
So why did winning feel like losing?
Eleanor called Marcus. He picked up from his hospital bed, still recovering from Sebastian's attack, still processing the fact that his sister's return to London had somehow triggered all of this.
"He approved everything," she told him.
Marcus was quiet for a moment. "That's what you wanted, right? To make him understand that you were right?"
"Yes," Eleanor said.
"So why do you sound like you just lost?"
Eleanor didn't answer.
Marcus breathed on the other end of the line. "Eleanor, I need to ask you something and I need you to answer honestly. Do you want to win against him or do you want to win him back?"
The question broke something in her.
Eleanor hung up the phone without responding because she didn't have an answer. Because the answer was complicated. Because winning against him meant destroying him and that was exactly what she'd come back to do and now it was done and it felt empty.
She stayed late at Blake Dynamics that night hoping to avoid him. Hoping to process what it meant that he'd surrendered. Hoping to understand why victory tasted like defeat.
But he was waiting for her in the hallway outside her office.
Harrison looked exhausted. Like he hadn't slept. Like understanding what he'd done to her had finally broken through all his defenses. He'd changed his clothes but not his expression. His eyes were red. His jaw was clenched.
"I am sorry for everything I put you through," he said quietly.
Eleanor looked at him and for the first time since returning to London, she saw the man she'd married. Not the cold CEO. Not the broken man who'd pushed her away. Just Harrison. Scared. Damaged. Trying to find his way back to something he'd destroyed.
She said nothing.
She walked past him and went into her office and locked the door.
She couldn't have this conversation right now. Couldn't let him explain or apologize or try to rebuild what they'd had. The armor was too thin. The walls were too fragile. If she let him in now, everything she'd built would collapse.
Eleanor sat at her desk with her hands shaking.
Then she saw it.
A folder sitting in the middle of her desk.
She didn't remember putting it there. Her assistant wouldn't have left something without asking. Eleanor opened it with trembling fingers.
Inside were love letters.
All of them. Every single letter she'd written to Harrison over the five years they were married. Confessions she'd made in private. Things she'd never told anyone else. Declarations of love that she'd written in the dark at night thinking only he would ever see them.
He'd kept them all.
And he'd returned them.
Eleanor held the letters in her shaking hands and understood what this meant. He was giving her back the pieces of herself she'd given to him. He was returning her heart because he understood now that he didn't deserve to keep it.
She cried then.
For the first time since coming home to London, Eleanor cried. Not quiet tears. Real crying. The kind where your whole body breaks and you can't stop it. The kind where you finally let yourself feel everything you've been holding back.
She cried for the woman she'd been when she loved him completely.
She cried for the baby they'd lost without knowing.
She cried for the choices he'd made that destroyed them both.
She cried for the fact that she still loved him even though she'd promised herself she wouldn't.
When the crying finally stopped, Eleanor was hollowed out. Empty. All the anger and righteousness and need for revenge had drained out of her, leaving only exhaustion and something that might have been forgiveness.
Her phone buzzed.
Another email from the mysterious sender.
But this time it wasn't a warning or a revelation. It was a name and an address and one sentence that changed everything.
The email read: "That folder of letters wasn't delivered by Harrison. It was delivered by his mother. And she's been orchestrating this entire situation from the beginning. She's waiting for you at the address below. And she's going to tell you something that will explain why Harrison did everything he did. She's going to tell you why he pushed you away. And it has nothing to do with his father's death or your pregnancy. It has to do with something he's been keeping from you for six years."
Eleanor read the address.
It was the same place Marcus had wanted her to go on her first night in London. The place where Harrison's mother had been waiting all along.
Eleanor grabbed her jacket and headed for the door.
She wasn't ready for what was coming next.
But she was going to face it anyway.
Because she'd learned that facing things was the only way to survive them.