SECOND CHANCE WITH MY POSSESSIVE BILLIONAIRE CAPTAIN

Chapter 4

NADIA

Grayson crossed the room in three strides and yanked the door open before I could stop him.

Callahan stood in the hallway with a man I did not recognize, a camera already raised, the small red light on its side blinking exactly the way the one in the studio had that morning.

"Smile," Callahan said, right as the shutter clicked.

I had not even seen him arrive. One moment the hallway had been empty behind Grayson's shoulder, and the next Callahan was simply there, standing far too comfortably for a man who had no business being on this floor at all.

"How did you even get up here?" I asked, my voice shaking more than I wanted it to.

"I have my ways." Callahan did not look at me when he answered. His attention stayed fixed on Grayson, sharp and hungry, the way a man looks at something he already believes he owns.

Grayson's hand shot out and covered the lens before a second shot could fire.

"Get that camera out of my face," he said, low and even, the kind of calm that felt far more dangerous than shouting would have.

"Or what?" Callahan did not step back. If anything, he leaned in, delighted. "You'll do what, exactly? Assault a journalist in a hotel hallway? That's an even better headline than the one I already have."

"You sent her here under false pretenses."

"I sent her to do her job. What you two decided to do with that opportunity is not my problem." Callahan's eyes flicked past Grayson, landing on me with a satisfaction that made my skin crawl. "Nadia. Care to explain why you're standing in a hotel suite with the subject of your assignment at ten o'clock at night?"

"You told me there was an interview."

"I told you what I needed to tell you." He shrugged, unbothered. "Results matter more than methods in this business. You should know that by now."

"This is a setup."

"This is a story." Callahan's smile did not waver. "Captain Donovan's ex-girlfriend, assigned to cover his championship season, caught alone with him in a hotel room days into the assignment. That writes itself, don't you think?"

"You'll destroy her career over a photograph," Grayson said quietly, "for a story you invented."

"I'll build her career, actually. Scandal sells better than sports scores ever did." Callahan turned to the photographer beside him. "Get a few more angles before they close that door."

Grayson stepped fully into the doorway, blocking the shot with the width of his own shoulders, immovable in a way that made the photographer lower his camera without being told twice.

"Try again," Grayson said, "and I'll make sure every outlet in this city knows exactly how you operate."

Something flickered across Callahan's face, the first real hesitation I had seen from him all night. "Is that a threat?"

"It's a promise." Grayson's voice never rose, which somehow made it worse. "You want a headline? Here's one for free. Network editor manufactures a scandal to sabotage his own reporter's career. I know people who would run that story for the pleasure of it alone."

Callahan's jaw worked silently for a moment. Then, slowly, he stepped back, gesturing for the photographer to lower the camera the rest of the way.

"This isn't over," he said, though the certainty had drained out of his voice. "I'll find another angle."

"Find one that doesn't involve manufacturing evidence against your own employee," Grayson said. "You might not like where that road actually ends for you."

Callahan's eyes cut to me one last time, calculating something I could not quite read. "You picked a side tonight, Nadia. I hope it was the right one."

"I didn't pick anything. I came here for a story you invented."

"Sure you did." He turned and walked back down the hallway without another word, the photographer trailing behind him like a shadow that had already lost interest in the chase.

Grayson shut the door the moment they were out of sight, and the click of the lock felt final this time, in a way it had not been before.

I stood frozen in the middle of the room, my whole body still buzzing from the adrenaline of it.

"Are you alright?" Grayson asked, turning to face me, his expression softening the moment he looked at me properly.

"He's going to try again. You heard him."

"Let him try." Grayson crossed the room slowly, stopping close enough that I had to look up to hold his gaze. "I meant what I said. I won't let him do this to you."

"You don't get to decide that. This is my career, Grayson, not yours to protect."

"I know." Something quieter moved behind his eyes, less certain than the version of him that had just faced down Callahan without blinking. "I still want to protect it anyway. I want to protect you. Some things about me apparently never changed, no matter how much time passed."

"You can't just decide that for both of us. That's exactly the kind of thing that used to scare me about you."

"Scare you, or make you feel safe?" He reached up, brushing a strand of hair back from my face with a gentleness that did not match the fury he had shown Callahan minutes earlier. "Because I remember it being both, Nadia. I remember you telling me once that nobody had ever fought for you the way I did, right before you disappeared without a single word."

"That's not fair."

"No," he agreed. "It isn't. None of tonight has been fair." His hand settled at my jaw, careful, deliberate. "I'm still not sorry I opened that door."

I should have argued with that. I should have reminded him, and myself, of every reason walking back into this room with him had been a mistake from the very beginning.

Instead I closed the last of the distance between us, and when his hands finally settled at my waist, careful and certain all at once, I did not think about Callahan, or the camera, or the career I was supposed to be protecting. For the first time in five years, I let myself stop thinking entirely.

The city lights burned on outside the window long after either of us had any reason to notice them.

I woke before dawn to the sound of my own phone buzzing against the nightstand, insistent, relentless, the kind of buzzing that only ever meant something had already gone wrong. I reached for it carefully, not wanting to wake Grayson, and felt my stomach drop the moment I saw the screen.

Forty three missed calls. All from Camille.

The single text beneath them made my blood run cold.

"Nadia, call me the second you see this. The photo is already online."

I sat up too fast, the room tilting slightly, last night's warmth draining out of me in an instant. Beside me, Grayson stirred, his hand finding my arm even before he was fully awake.

"What's wrong?"

"Camille says there's a photo online." My hands shook as I opened the link she had sent, the screen too bright in the dark room. "Callahan must have gotten a shot after all. Or someone else did."

Grayson sat up beside me, reading over my shoulder, his jaw tightening the second the image loaded. It was not Callahan's photographer's work, not the hallway, not either of us caught in a compromising angle. It was worse than that, older than that, a grainy picture from five years ago I had never once seen before, the two of us outside a courthouse, my hand pressed flat against his chest like I was either holding him close or pushing him away.

The caption beneath it made my stomach drop straight through the floor.

"Captain Donovan's secret past: the wedding that never happened."