Chapter 10—A quiet War begins❤️
809 Words
Adrian lasted exactly forty-eight hours.
Forty-eight miserable, distracted, productivity-destroying hours of
not looking for Elena,
not “accidentally” taking the wrong elevator,
and not inventing excuses to walk through the Public Tower.
It was agony.
Marcus noticed immediately.
“Sir,” Marcus said during a budget meeting, “you just approved allocating twelve million dollars to… pastries.”
Adrian blinked down at the document.
“Oh.”
The room full of executives stared at him.
He forced composure. “Reverse that.”
Marcus sighed the sigh of a man who had aged ten years in two days.
“Yes, sir.”
Adrian tried to focus, but his brain kept drifting back to Elena’s voice in the hallway, the way she’d said No talking. No looking.
He was giving her space.
He promised.
But every cell in his body hated it.
⸻
Elena’s Attempt at Normalcy
Across the Tower complex, Elena was also doing an abysmal job pretending she was fine.
She told herself:
• She didn’t care where Adrian was.
• She didn’t care that he hadn’t shown up.
• She didn’t care he was respecting her boundaries.
It was the last one that really got her.
Adrian Vale was actually respecting her.
Why did that make her chest feel tight?
She dropped a tray of glasses and Kara winced.
“Girl. You’re falling apart.”
“I am not.”
“You look like you’re in a Victorian novel mourning a sailor lost at sea.”
“I’m just tired.”
“You’re love-tired.”
“Stop talking.”
Kara smirked. “You miss him.”
Elena scrubbed a plate harder than necessary.
She wasn’t going to dignify that with a response.
⸻
Tower Politics
Meanwhile, on the higher floors, Charles Vale was reviewing a series of photos.
Most of them were innocuous:
• His son entering meetings
• His son at lunch with investors
• His son standing far too close to a waitress in a service corridor
He zoomed in.
The girl was pretty.
The wrong kind of pretty.
The dangerous kind.
The kind who could make a man forget his responsibilities.
Charles leaned back in his chair, expression ice-cold.
“This… will not do.”
⸻
The Storm Breaks the Quiet
That afternoon, Adrian’s secretary buzzed in.
“Sir, your father wants to see you. Immediately.”
Marcus muttered, “Well, that’s never ominous.”
Adrian straightened his tie, though his stomach tightened.
His father didn’t summon, not unless something had gone terribly wrong.
Or terribly interesting.
He walked into the CEO’s office.
Floor-to-ceiling windows.
A view that swallowed the city.
His father didn’t stand.
He simply held up a single photo.
A photo Adrian recognized instantly.
Him.
Elena.
Too close.
Her expression soft.
His… softer.
Adrian’s heart dropped.
Charles’s voice was smooth and lethal.
“Tell me about the waitress.”
Adrian kept his face still. “She works in the Public Tower.”
“Apparently you do too, these days.”
“Father—”
Charles set the photo down like it was a weapon.
“You will end this.”
Adrian’s jaw locked. “There’s nothing to end.”
Charles’s eyes flicked up. “Don’t lie to me.”
Adrian felt heat rise beneath his skin — frustration, anger, something deeper.
“I care about my employees,” he said evenly.
Charles almost laughed.
“Is that what you tell yourself? How noble.”
Adrian’s hands curled into fists. “Elena is not a—”
“Exactly,” Charles cut in. “She is not. Not appropriate. Not advantageous. Not someone you will be associating with again.”
A cold, sharp fury sliced through Adrian.
“She’s a person,” he said, voice low. “Not an embarrassment.”
Charles’s expression turned to steel.
“You will stop this now. Or I will handle it myself.”
Adrian’s heart stopped.
“What does that mean?” he demanded.
But his father simply looked past him, toward the skyline, dismissing him without a word.
Adrian walked out before he said something he couldn’t take back.
Marcus stared at him as he emerged from the office.
“What happened?”
Adrian didn’t answer.
He pressed a hand to the wall, breathing hard.
Something terrible was coming.
He felt it.
And it wasn’t aimed at him.
It was aimed at Elena.
⸻
A Warning
Elena found out sooner than he could get to her.
She was wiping down the bar when a sharply dressed man approached — older, cold expression, expensive suit.
“Miss Marquez,” he said.
She looked up. “Yes?”
“I’d like a word. Privately.”
Her stomach dropped.
She didn’t know him, but something about him felt familiar—
the Vale eyes, the Vale jawline, the Vale command in his voice.
Oh God.
He was a Vale.
- Writer
