The CEO’s Terms of Surrender

Chapter 5: Cutting Ties

Julian's POV

Peggy Ashford never entered a room quietly.

She stood in my doorway in cream Chanel, sunglasses pushed up into her hair, smiling at me like the last three months never happened.

She had an annoying smirk waiting for an answer.

"You are," I said. "Leave."

It didn't work. It never did. Peggy had spent her whole life treating 'no' as an opening bid.

Her gaze slid past me to Clara. My stomach turned hot and hard at once.

"And who's this?" Peggy asked, in the tone she reserved for staff she had no intention of remembering. "New decoration for the office?"

"My assistant," I said.

Peggy's eyes raked over Clara's blazer, her flats, the plain watch on her wrist. Her mouth curled. "How resourceful of you, Julian. Cheap street help, straight off the clearance rack. Very on-brand for a man cutting corners."

"Clara," I said, without looking away from Peggy, "give us the room."

Clara left without a word. The door clicked shut behind her.

Peggy waited exactly as long as it took the latch to catch before her smile dropped entirely.

"Cheap street help," she repeated, savoring it. "Is that really the image you want, Julian? The papers already call you the Ice King. Add 'slums it with the help' and watch how fast the board starts asking questions."

"The board asks me plenty of questions," I said, moving to sit down behind my desk. "None of them are about my staff."

"They will be." She crossed the room, heels sharp against the marble, and dropped into the chair across from my desk without being asked. "You know, you still look sexy when you're angry. I always did like you best when you have a temper."

"I don't want anything from you, Peggy."

"Don't you?" She leaned forward, elbows on the glass. "Whatever happened three months ago..."

"What happened three months ago," I cut her off, "is that I ended it. Simple . In under five minutes, if I recall, which is considerably less time than you're taking to accept it now."

"I refuse to accept it because we still have a chance of rekindling our relationship " she said.

"There is absolutely nothing to rekindle. You cheated on me," I said, flat, no heat in it at all, because I had said this sentence enough times in my own head over the last several months that it had long since stopped costing me anything to say out loud. "With Weston Cole, who I'd introduced you to at my own father's benefit dinner. For months, apparently, before I found out by accident, from someone who assumed I already knew."

Her expression flickered, real anger, before she smoothed it back into something composed.

"Your mother still invites me to things," she said like haven't just told her about how unfaithful she was to me. "She still thinks.."

"My mother's guest list isn't a contract."

"The Ashford name is tied to half the deals your father built this company on," she snapped, the pretense cracking. "You think you can cut me out and nothing changes? My family's relationships..."

"Are no longer relevant to Vance Holdings," I said. "They stopped being relevant the day I stopped needing them. Which was before I stopped needing you."

I stood, circling the desk toward her, slow and deliberate. My pulse didn't spike. My hands stayed steady.

"You are no longer a Vance Holdings client," I said. "And you have no place in my life. Get out of my office, and never return."

Peggy stood too but she didn't move for the door.

Instead she stepped close to me, closer than the conversation called for, near enough that her perfume, sharp and floral and deliberately expensive, filled the space between us. Her hand lifted, fingers grazing the edge of my collar, adjusting it like she still had any right left to touch me at all.

"Julian." Her voice dropped, softer now, an old, practiced softness I remembered far too well. "We were good together. You know we were."

I didn't move. My jaw stayed locked, my eyes fixed on hers, refusing to let them drop even an inch lower, even as she shifted, deliberately, the neckline of her blouse slipping a fraction with the movement, an invitation dressed up as an accident.

"Don't," I said, my voice low.

"Don't what?" Her fingers lingered at my collar a moment longer. "I'm just talking to you."

I caught her wrist. Hard.

"You're done here," I said. "Whatever this is...it stopped meaning anything to me a long time ago, and nothing you do with your hands is going to change that."

Something ugly flashed behind her eyes, gone as fast as it came. She pulled her wrist free, smoothed her blouse back into place, and stepped back with the brittle composure of someone recalculating in real time.

"Fine," she said. "Have it your way."

She gathered her bag, and for a moment I thought she was actually going to leave without another word.

She stopped at the door instead. Turned back. Her smile was gone completely now, replaced by something colder, something far more dangerous than anger.

"This isn't over, Julian," she said quietly. "I saw how you looked at her."she said referring to Clara. "And you have no idea the length i will go for whatever it is you think you might want with her not to happen."

She was gone before I could answer, heels fading down the hall.