CHAPTER 4
1622 Words
“Loyalty is just a leverage dressed in pretty words”
The Dubai boardroom smelt like power.
Polished wood. Glass walls. A skyline view designed to intimidate. Ava didn’t bother sitting. She stood at the head of the table in black tailored Dior, heels clicking against marble like a war drum. Every man in the room looked like he’d rather be anywhere else—and that meant she was doing it right.
Vincent Dane, to his credit, kept his mouth shut.
His vote was the first to come.
Then the second.
Then a third, from one of Selene’s former allies, who now couldn’t meet Ava’s eyes.
Cowards, she thought. All of them. But cowards are predictable. And predictable is easy to control.
She didn’t flinch when the final vote came in.
Unanimous.
The Dubai board was hers.
She smiled—not a sweet one, not a grateful one, but the smile of a woman who had taken something. Claimed it. Owned it.
“Gentlemen,” she said, her voice as smooth as obsidian.
“You made the right choice.”
And then, like a final checkmate, she laid the press release on the table: a sleek, surgical strike drafted in advance.
DANE RESIGNS. AVA VICTORIOUS IN MIDDLE EAST POWER SHIFT.
Selene would see it before her morning espresso.
Good, Ava thought. Let her choke on it.
****
That Night—Ava’s Penthouse
Ethan was already inside when she got home.
He stood near the window, whiskey in hand, the city shining it's light behind him.
“You broke Vincent,” he said, not turning around.
“Correction. I burned him.”
He looked back over his shoulder at her, his features nearly invisible in the dim light.
“You’re making enemies quicker than you are adding them up.”
She threw her bag onto the couch without missing a beat.
“Enemies are a sign you’re doing it right.”
There was a long silence… a dense, ponderous pause.
“You never trust anyone, do you?” he asked, voice low.
Ava smiled coldly. “Trust is a liability.”
He turned fully to face her now, something harder flashing across his expression.
“And what am I, Ava? A liability you tolerate? A weapon you use?”
“You’re here because you’re useful,” she added, without batting an eye.
“That’s all.”
A lie. One she told herself as much as him.
Ethan came closer, the heat between them so intense it was jagged.
“I don’t think you even know what you want anymore,” he said.
Her jaw tensed. “I know exactly what I want.”
“Power?” he challenged. “Control?”
“Both,” she said, entering his air. “And I will pay any price to keep them.”
He glanced down at her, a kind of frustration.
“Even if it costs you everything else?
She didn’t flinch. “Especially then.”
For a minute neither of them said anything.
The city hummed outside, distant and irrelevant. It was just the two of them in the quiet war zone of her penthouse, two forces circling.
Her jaw clenched. “You were the reason I had to fight harder for everything.”
“No. I never meant to be,” Ethan said, voice rough.
“You were already fighting long before I walked into your life.”
“Too late for what?” Her voice cracked like ice.
“For you to stop f*****g me?”
He stepped closer, jaw tight. “Too late for me to stay away.”
That silenced her.
Not because it softened the blow… but because it complicated it.
She hated that part the most.
“I’m not looking for your guilt, Ethan,” she whispered.
He glanced at her, and for the first time, there was a touch of regret in his expression.
“I’m not offering guilt. I’m telling you… whatever I was then, I’m not anymore.”
Ava stared at him for a long moment.
Then she turned away.
“I’ll call if I need you for anything else.”
“You’re dismissing me.”
She didn’t answer.
Didn’t have to.
He left without another word.
And when the door shut, Ava finally let her knees bend.
Just a little.
Just enough to feel the break.
But not enough to show it.
She didn’t cry.
But she stood there for far too long, staring at the door like it owed her something. Like it had taken something with it when it closed.
Maybe it had.
She went to pour herself a drink—bourbon, neat, the kind that burned going down—and made it halfway through the glass before the intercom buzzed.
She didn’t move.
It buzzed again.
Then her phone lit up.
Ethan: Open the door.
She should’ve blocked the number. Deleted it. Forgot it existed.
Instead, she pressed the button.
The elevator opened seconds later.
Ethan stepped out like a man who hadn’t been dismissed. Like she hadn’t just iced him out with a look and a line.
“I forgot something,” he said, breath tight.
“Oh?” Her voice was cool. Too cool.
“What was that?”
He didn’t answer.
He just walked—right toward her, no hesitation. Ava stepped back once, and then her spine stiffened defiantly.
“I’m not looking for apologies,” she said.
“Good,” he growled. “Because I’m not here to f*****g give one.”
Then he was on her.
Mouth crashing into hers.
Hands fisting in her silk blouse, ripping buttons without care.
She gasped into him, biting his lip hard enough to draw blood. He didn’t stop. Didn’t flinch.
She shoved him backward into the kitchen island, climbing up on it without a word.
His hands were already under her skirt.
Her nails scratched down his chest as he pushed into her, raw and rough, too impatient to take off more clothes. His mouth sought her neck, her collarbone, her pulse — biting, sucking, burning her with the heat of all there on spoken between them.
It was violent, breathless, and necessary.
Her legs clamped around him, drawing him in deeper. His hand slid up her spine, fisting in her hair, yanking her head back just enough to see the look in her eyes.
Power.
Hurt.
Lust.
“Say it,” he breathed.
“Tell me this doesn’t matter.”
She didn’t.
She couldn’t.
She just kissed him harder… tongue and teeth and fury.
And when she came, it wasn’t with a cry. It was with his name falling from her lips like a confession she didn’t mean to make.
He held her after.
She let him—for a breath. For a heartbeat.
But she wasn’t a woman who stayed held.
Not when war was still waiting outside her door.
Not when the man in her arms had once handed Selene the blade she used to cut her down.
She pulled away, slipping off the island with her blouse half-open and her skirt askew.
“Don’t mistake this for forgiveness.”
Ethan’s hand caught her wrist.
His voice was low, dangerous. “I’m not here for forgiveness either.”
She turned, slowly.
And in his eyes, she saw it again—that same hunger from the gala. The one that had followed her from Monaco to Manhattan. But now it was darker. Sharper.
More desperate.
He moved forward, and this time she didn’t back away. His fingers slipped under the hem of her tattered blouse, running up the slope of her bare back.
“You think I came here to just f**k you?” he said roughly.
She tilted her chin. “Isn’t that what you have been doing?”
His lips brushed her ear. “No. That’s what I’m about to do.”
And then he was kissing her again—slow this time. Deep. Like a man trying to memorize the taste of his last sin.
He dropped to his knees before her, hands dragging her skirt down her legs, mouth brushing her thighs as he went.
She didn’t stop him. Couldn’t. Her breath seized when his tongue found her, when his hands slotted her hips against the marble edge, an anchor to hold her steady while he drank her as a man starved.
She cried out, fingers digging into his hair, her body shaking as he drove her to the cusp… and past. Her legs buckled, but he caught her, scooped her up in his arms as if she were light as air.
He carried her to the bedroom.
Laid her down like a queen on silk sheets.
Then stripped for her… slowly, deliberately… his eyes never leaving hers. And when he joined her again, it was all heat and friction, all sharp gasps and slick skin. He made her feel everything she didn’t want to feel—longing, possession, need.
She clawed at his back, pulled him deeper, moved with him like the only way to survive was to shatter again and again.
They didn’t speak.
They didn’t have to.
Their bodies told the story.
One of betrayal and addiction.
Of pain and passion.
Of two people who should’ve burned each other down—but instead kept coming back to the fire.
By the time the sun threatened the skyline, Ava lay beside him, chest heaving, hair tangled across the sheets.
Ethan turned his head, voice rough with sleep and something softer.
“Say it.”
She didn’t open her eyes.
“Say it doesn’t matter.”
She never said a word.
But her hand slid across the sheets, found him.
And held on.
Just for a little while.
Just until morning.
- Writer
