The penthouse had become a battlefield of silences in the days following the hospital ambush, each meal a minefield, every glance laced with Julian's unyielding determination.
Eleanor had locked the bedroom door that first night, curling into the sheets that still carried faint traces of her stolen nights with Rhys, her body a fortress against the man she married.
But Julian didn't storm the gates with apologies or rage. he eroded them with strategy, the same cold precision he applied to hostile takeovers.
The fertility results burned in his mind. It's not a failure, but a checklist item of viable, treatable. Stress, the doctor had said. Medication would fix it. And Julian Voss didn't tolerate inefficiencies.
By morning, he already mobilized. Over breakfast the next day. He slid a
