The Merger

Chapter Five: The Argument

He didn't speak until they were outside, dusk settling blue and gold through the trees. Elena had expected him to explode. Instead he stood there, hands in his pockets, jaw working, looking for once like a man who didn't know where to start.

"How long have you known?" she asked, because she'd be damned if she let the silence stretch.

"Since I was twenty-two. My father told me himself — not as a confession, as a lesson. He was proud of it." His voice had lost every trace of its usual polish. "The moment I saw your firm on the Ashcombe bidder list, I understood exactly what I was looking at. A chance to either finish what my father started, or undo it. I chose the second. I told myself that made me nothing like him."

"You still lied to me. By omission. That's still a lie."

"I know." No excuse, no softening — the same unflinching honesty from dinner, landing just as hard the second time. "I told myself I was protecting you from a story that wasn't mine to tell. The truth is I was terrified of exactly this — you, knowing everything my family took from yours, deciding I wasn't worth trusting because of it."

"Do you have any idea what it's like? Finding out your entire life's work started as recovery from a betrayal you never even knew happened?"

"I can't fix that. I've spent my whole adult life trying to be the version of my family that doesn't do what he did — and I still made a decision on your behalf without asking. I saw that the second my mother opened her mouth. I just didn't want to see it in front of you."

The admission cost him something visible. Elena had braced for arrogance, for another smooth defense. She hadn't braced for a man standing in front of her, actually afraid — and she understood, in that exact moment, that what he was afraid of losing was her.

"I don't know if I can separate you from what your father did," she said, quieter now. "Not yet."

"I'm not asking you to." He stepped closer, close enough that the air between them went thin. "I'm asking you to let me prove, over six months, that I'm not him."

"That's a coward's apology."

"I know that too."

His eyes dropped to her mouth, and this time neither of them looked away. Her pulse did something reckless and entirely unhelpful, and she hated how much of her wanted to close the last six inches and find out exactly what an apology from Damian Wolfe tasted like.

She stepped back instead.

"I'll see you Monday. For the project. Nothing else is decided."

"Understood." His voice had gone rough, and something in the way he said it told her he understood exactly how close they'd both come to deciding something else.

She was three steps toward her car when her phone buzzed. Not Sebastian. Not Vivian. An unfamiliar number.

Ms. Cross — this is Aldridge Riverside's lead investor. We need to discuss a serious concern regarding Wolfe Development's financial standing before your firm signs anything. Call me tonight. It's urgent.