MY EX RETURED AS A BILLIONAIRE

Chapter three

**Chapter Three**

Sophie's POV

By my second week, I'd almost gotten used to it. The glass tower, the hum of the marketing floor, the quiet dread that settled in my stomach every time Ryan's office door opened, even when it had nothing to do with me. Almost.

I'd started arriving early, just to have a few quiet minutes before the day started pulling at me from every direction. That Thursday morning I was halfway through my coffee when Olivia found me at my desk, holding a tablet like it might bite her.

"Mr. Black wants you in his office. Now."

"Me?"

"You." She didn't quite meet my eyes. "He asked for you specifically."

My pulse ticked up. A few early risers were already watching without bothering to hide their curiosity — new hires didn't usually get summoned by name in their second week, and everyone seemed to know it but me.

"Do you know what it's about?"

"No idea. But he cleared his morning for it. That never happens."

That didn't help. I smoothed my blazer, grabbed a notepad, and walked the two doors down like it was just another assignment. It wasn't.

Ryan didn't look up when I walked in. He was standing at the window again, the city sprawled out behind him like it belonged to him. Maybe it did. I used to know a version of him that wasn't like that at all — a version who left dishes in the sink and laughed too loud at his own jokes.

"You wanted to see me, Mr. Black?"

"The Kessler pitch." He finally turned. "It's yours."

I blinked. "That's a two-million-dollar client. I've been here two weeks."

"I'm aware."

"With respect, this usually goes to a senior strategist."

"I don't care what it usually goes to." His eyes stayed flat, unreadable. "I care whether you can do it."

"Why me?"

Something shifted behind his eyes, there and gone so fast I might have imagined it. He did this every time I asked something too close to the truth.

"Because I've seen your work," he said. "Don't make me regret it."

"When's it due?"

"Friday. Take whatever resources you need. Full access to the account history."

That caught me off guard — clearance well above what a two-weeks-in assistant should have. I turned to leave, and his voice stopped me at the door.

"Sophie." I turned back. "You used to do this. Under pressure. You always worked better under pressure."

The room went very still. "How would you know that? We've never worked together."

His jaw tightened. "Lucky guess," he said, looking back down at his desk like the conversation was already over.

I walked out with my heart hammering, unable to understand why he kept dropping small, precise details no stranger could know, then retreating behind *Mr. Black* like he hadn't said anything at all.

I spent the day buried in the Kessler files. Around noon, a woman from design — Priya — dropped by with coffee. "Heard you got handed Kessler. Mr. Black doesn't hand out accounts like that. Ever." She studied me a second too long. "You must have impressed him fast."

"I don't know what I did."

"Well, whatever it was, keep doing it."

She walked off before I could ask anything else, and I sat there turning her words over. Everyone kept saying some version of the same thing — that I was getting attention that didn't make sense for a stranger. Except none of it felt like nothing.

I stayed late that night, the floor emptying out until it was just the hum of my laptop and the city lights. I was three slides into a rabbit hole of spreadsheets when I heard footsteps.

Ryan set a coffee down beside my laptop without a word. Black, no sugar. Exactly how I used to take it.

"Lucky guess again?"

He glanced at my screen instead. "You're overcomplicating the second slide. Lead with retention, not acquisition. That's what they actually care about."

"How do you know what Kessler cares about?"

"I read the files."

"You read every client's files?"

"I read yours."

The admission sat between us, heavier than it should have been. "You looked like you needed it," he said, nodding at the coffee, as if that explained why he'd walked down here at nine at night with exactly the order I used to give a barista three years ago.

"I didn't tell anyone how I take my coffee."

"No," he agreed. "You didn't."

Neither of us moved. The silence stretched, three years of it sitting between us like a wall neither of us knew how to climb.

"Ryan—"

"Mr. Black," he corrected, quieter this time, less certain.

"Fine. *Mr. Black.* Why does it feel like you know things about me you shouldn't?"

He looked at me a long moment, long enough that I saw something c***k behind his eyes — the same flicker from that first day, buried before I could name it.

"Finish the pitch, Sophie. It's good work."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one you're getting tonight."

He left before I could push further. I sat there staring at the coffee going cold, and for the first time since walking into his office, I let myself ask the question I'd been avoiding. What if I didn't imagine any of it? What if something happened three years ago that neither of us actually chose?

My phone buzzed. Daniel. *Working late again? Want me to wait up?*

*No, go ahead and sleep. Big pitch tomorrow.* It wasn't a lie. It just wasn't the whole truth either.

Ryan's POV

I told myself giving her the Kessler account was a test. That was the lie I fed myself all morning. Why me, she'd asked. Because I did know things I shouldn't — her coffee order, the way she worked better under pressure — a hundred small, permanent things about Sophie Carter that had no business surviving three years of silence. I'd told myself I would bury all of it the moment she walked through my door. I hadn't managed to bury a single piece of it.

Ella found me at my desk long after the floor had cleared. "You gave her Kessler," she said. Not a question.

"She's capable."

"She's been here two weeks. You're not exactly subtle, Ryan. The coffee. The account access. Everyone's going to start asking why the CEO is hand-delivering espresso to a new hire at nine at night."

I didn't answer. She softened slightly. "Does she know?"

"No."

"Are you going to tell her?"

I looked at the light still on at Sophie's desk. "I don't know how."

"You've carried this for three years," Ella said. "At some point carrying it stops being loyalty. It just becomes punishment. For both of you." She left before I could answer.

I told myself I wasn't going to go down there. I went down there anyway. I bought the coffee, black, no sugar, telling myself it meant nothing. It meant everything.

"Lucky guess again?" she asked when I set it down.

I almost told her the truth right there — *I know because I loved you for two years and never stopped, not even when I believed you chose someone else* — and swallowed it back down the way I had every day since she walked back into my life.

"You looked like you needed it," I said instead. Coward's answer.

She pushed, the way she always used to. "Why does it feel like you know things about me you shouldn't?"

I looked at her, really looked, and for one second let her see it — whatever was underneath. Then I buried it again.

"Finish the pitch, Sophie. It's good work."

I walked away before she could see my hands weren't steady, before she could ask the question I still didn't know how to answer. Why did you leave? Because someone made sure I never knew the truth. Because I believed a lie for three years and built an empire on the wreckage of the one thing I actually wanted.

I reached my office and shut the door harder than necessary. On my desk, the photograph sat face-down where I'd left it. I picked it up — Sophie laughing at the lake, my arm around her, both of us certain nothing could touch what we had. I'd been wrong. Someone had touched it, taken it apart piece by piece without either of us noticing until it was already gone.

I set the photograph face-up this time, and left it that way.