Adrian had learned early that control was not the absence of desire, but the mastery of it.
Desire was easy. Desire was primitive, predictable, and easily exploited. Control was what separated men who ruled from men who reacted. Control was what allowed him to sit across a table from rivals intent on dismantling him and smile as if nothing they said mattered. Control was what had carried him through every room where power shifted quietly and no one raised their voice.
Control was what had convinced him this arrangement would work.
He had not anticipated how much effort it would take not to look at her.
From the moment Lena stepped into view that morning, something inside him had gone taut in a way that did not resolve itself with logic or repetition. The dress should not have mattered.
