Ashley’s POV
The moment I stepped into the car, my hands wouldn’t stop trembling.
“Home,” I told the driver, my voice barely steady.
The door shut, the city noise faded, and for the first time since that handshake, I could breathe—barely. My chest rose and fell too quickly. My pulse hadn’t calmed since I saw it — that small, gleaming cufflink with the initials A.J.
Alan.
Alan Jean.
My father’s greatest rival’s son.
The man I had slept with.
My stomach twisted. I pressed a hand against it, as if I could physically hold the truth down before it exploded out of me. Every memory from that night flashed like broken film reels — the way he’d touched me, the way I’d felt safe in his arms, the way he’d whispered nothing that could ever be traced.
No names.
No past.
No future.
And I’d t
