The email glowed on Isabelle’s screen, but the words didn’t blur this time. No — they were sharp. Too sharp. The kind that made her pulse quicken and her stomach twist.
Proposal: Hale Enterprises Investment Inquiry
Of course he’d made it official. Of course he couldn’t just wait until they were home to bring this up. But then, Sebastian never did anything halfway — and he certainly never kept business and personal separate when it suited him.
Still, the thought of him investing in her company made her chest tighten. It wasn’t just the weight of their past — it was what people would say. What her team would think. She’d fought too hard to build this company on her own, and the last thing she needed was whispers of nepotism.
Her company was hers. The one thing she’d built from the ground
