The silence was different here.
Not the kind that came from distance or discomfort, but the kind that settled between two people when they'd already said all the things that mattered. When words would only break something more fragile than truth—trust.
Emery stood at the floor-to-ceiling window of Nicholas's penthouse, the skyline spread before her like a sea of lights trying too hard to mimic stars. Below them, the city breathed its usual after-midnight rhythm—cars, sirens, soft music from someone's rooftop party a few buildings over. Up here, it felt like another world entirely.
She wore one of his shirts—white, oversized, with the faintest trace of his cologne clinging to the collar. Bare legs. Bare feet. Still, she felt more covered in this moment than she had in weeks.
Behind her, she heard the sound of him pouring coffee. Again. The soft clink of ceramic meeting granite. No one should be drinking coffee at nearly midnight, but Nicholas Ashford didn't follow rules. Not in the boardroom. Not in bed. Not in grief.
"You should try to sleep," she said quietly, still not turning around.
"I should do a lot of things," he replied, voice low and ragged. "Sleeping isn't one of them."
She finally turned to look at him. He looked undone—but not in the way the public would ever see. No tie. No cufflinks. No armor. His black dress shirt was half-unbuttoned, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, collar slightly wrinkled. He held a mug with both hands like it was the only thing anchoring him to this moment.
Emery stepped forward and took her own cup from the counter. Their fingers brushed. Brief. Electric.
"You didn't have to call me," she said.
"Yes, I did."
"Why?"
He lifted his eyes to hers. "Because I needed to know you were still with me."
They didn't move to the living room. That would've been too formal. Instead, they found their way to the floor—back to back at first, then shoulder to shoulder, surrounded by scattered papers and open laptops. The plush cream rug became their war table. A candle flickered in the corner, casting soft gold across the room. It felt sacred, in a way—two strategists rewriting the rules of survival.
"Lucas won't stop with the board," Emery said, flipping open a folder of internal memos. "He wants more. Leverage. Public outrage. A reason to force a vote."
"He doesn't just want to burn me," Nicholas said, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. "He wants to take the company and make it bleed. Strip it for parts."
"And use me as the match."
He turned toward her, sharply. "That's not going to happen."
Her voice softened. "It already is."
She reached for a red pen, circled a name on a document, then paused.
"Do you think they'll believe we weren't just playing house in the executive suite?" she asked. "That I earned what I have?"
Nicholas watched her. He didn't answer right away.
"I believe it," he said finally. "So we remind them. We remind them who you are."
"I'm not a symbol," she whispered. "I'm a woman with a job I love. A man I—" She stopped herself.
He caught the slip, but didn't press it. His voice dropped. "Then let's protect that woman. The job. The truth."
Emery turned to him. "You mean spin it."
"No," he said. "I mean own it. We stop hiding. We get ahead of the narrative."
She narrowed her eyes. "What does that look like?"
Nicholas leaned forward. "I tell the world that you weren't a secret. You were the reason we survived Q3. That the board didn't reward you because you were in my bed—they rewarded you because you outperformed three division heads. That you're not the assistant anymore. You're the future."
The words hit her harder than she expected.
She swallowed.
"You're not scared of what people will think?"
"I'm terrified," he said. "But I'm more terrified of losing you."
She stared at him for a long moment, then shifted closer. Their knees touched. Neither of them moved away.
"You know," she said, brushing hair behind her ear, "you were never supposed to be real to me. You were supposed to be… unreachable. Cold. Powerful. The fantasy I could ignore."
"And now?"
"Now you're just a man. Who breathes too hard when he's angry and forgets to eat when he's stressed."
He chuckled softly. "Don't forget emotionally stunted and a little obsessive."
She smiled. "And you drink far too much coffee at night."
He held up his mug in mock salute. "Guilty."
There was a lull. A softer silence.
Then, very gently, Nicholas asked, "Do you regret it? Any of this?"
She looked at him, serious now. "Do you?"
"No."
"Then no, I don't either."
He leaned his head back against the couch behind him, exhaling. "I haven't told anyone this, but… when I was twenty-three, I almost quit. The company. The legacy. Everything."
Emery blinked. "What stopped you?"
"My mother," he said. "She'd never taken a business class in her life. But she looked at me one night after I raged for two hours about board politics, and she said, 'Then make it better. Stop following your father's rules. Write your own.'"
He smiled faintly. "And I've been trying ever since."
Emery reached out and placed her hand over his.
Warm. Steady.
"You don't have to try alone anymore."
They didn't kiss.
They didn't touch beyond that quiet gesture of connection.
But somehow, the intimacy was thicker than sex.
More vulnerable than naked skin.
They sat like that for minutes. Hours. She wasn't sure.
At some point, he drifted closer and rested his forehead against hers. Their breaths aligned.
"You're not going to let him win, are you?" she whispered.
"No," he murmured. "But I'm not going to win this without you."
The clock hit 2:07 a.m.
Papers covered the floor.
Plans were forming.
But more than that, a partnership was being born—not just in lust, not just in scandal, but in shared fire.
She wasn't just the woman he desired.
She was the woman he'd fight beside.
And that? That was something no headline could twist.