Brief Indiscretion

Admissible Evidence

Rae's POV

When we met at the airport three hours later to catch the flight back to New York, Lucien looked right through me. He was cold, distant, and completely corporate, giving instructions to the skycaps without a single glance in my direction. He didn't mention the night. He didn't even look at my lips, Gosh I felt so stupid.

It meant nothing, I kept telling myself as the plane taxied down the runway.

It was just a mistake. A simple one nightstand, we are adults, I was a fool for thinking something would change.

But now, back in the present, standing inside the suffocating glass walls of the executive conference room in New York, that illusion was dead. The door was locked. The massive projector screen behind Lucien was still frozen on the high-definition security footage of my body pinned against that very penthouse wall, my face flushed with the exact pleasure I had tried so hard to forget.

Lucien closed the distance between us, his body flush against mine, pressing my back against the wall just like the move in the video. His breath was hot against my ear, his voice low and dangerous, bringing the ghost of London right back into the room.

"Now..." he leaned in, his lips brushing the sensitive skin of my earlobe, sending a violent shiver down her spine, that made me tremble. "Let's try that again. Is the baby mine... or not?"

I shook my head, my jaw aching from how hard I was clenching it. The pride that had kept me alive through years of professional challenges flared up. I couldn't let him win. I couldn't give him the satisfaction of knowing he had completely dismantled my defense.

"I have a boyfriend," repeating the same lie, my voice shaking but stubborn, my chin lifted just enough to defy him. "We were together before I even spoke to you that night."

Lucien's expression darkened instantly. His jaw clenched, those sharp, intelligent eyes narrowing. For a grueling second, he didn't speak. He just stared at me, dissecting the desperate cover story I had just fed him.

Then—a cold laugh. Low. Disbelieving.

"A boyfriend?" He repeated the word slowly, his voice dripping with skepticism. "You had someone else in your life… before the gala?"

He stepped back slightly and reached for his leather briefcase resting on the mahogany table. With a sharp, deliberate movement, he pulled out a thick manila folder and flipped it open right in front of me, never breaking eye contact.

Photos slid out across the polished wood first: surveillance shots from the gala's main entrance showing me arriving alone. Then came security logs of my hotel room key being scanned. No sign of any man entering or leaving my floor all evening except him. Next were the financial receipts—the penthouse suite reservation and room service logs.

Every single piece of data pointed directly back to the two of us. There was no third party.

Lucien slammed the folder shut, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the silent room. He stepped toward me again, his gaze intense.

"So tell me," his voice was quiet and precise. "What's his name?"

The sheer absurdity of it all—the tracking, the absolute ruthlessness of a man who was using his legal mind just to corner his own associate—finally made something inside me snap. The fear evaporated, replaced by a raw, blinding fury.

I snatched the folder right out of his hand, the heavy paper crinkling under my fingers.

"So what!" I exclaimed, my eyes blazing as the tears I had been fighting finally threatened to spill over. "How can I ever have a life outside of this office with the stress you put me under?!"The words poured out of me, a dam breaking after months of long weeks and impossible deadlines. "Look at this schedule, Lucien! Look at what you do to me every single day! I am working myself to the bone, running on three hours of sleep, trying to prove I belong at this firm! I had a massive panic attack in the stairwell on Friday night, struggling to even breathe because I was completely overwhelmed! That's why I requested leave—because I need to step away from this environment before I completely fall apart!"

I matched his intensity, my voice dropping to a fierce whisper. "And so what if it's yours? It's my life, and my choice. You don't get to cross-examine this, counselor. You don't get to win this one."

The moment I snatched the folder, Lucien didn't react—no anger flash, no outburst. Just silence. Deadly stillness. But his eyes? They changed. Something cracked behind that icy exterior. Not guilt—not quite—but a fracture in the control he always wore like armor.

Then I said it: had a massive panic attack... struggling to even breathe.

And just like that—his entire body locked up. The color drained slightly from his face, and for the first time since I'd known him… Lucien Cyrus looked genuinely shaken. He took an involuntary step back—like my words physically struck him—and then another, as if suddenly realizing how close he'd been crowding me against walls and desks all morning with zero regard for what my body and mind were actually going through now...His mouth opened once... then closed again without sound coming out at all—for someone so eloquent in courtrooms every single day of the week, this was unprecedented…Finally, his voice came out rougher than usual—quieted by something unfamiliar: fear? Regret?

"You were…?" He swallowed hard before continuing more carefully. "When did this happen?"He wasn't interrogating anymore. He was asking—genuinely asking—as if suddenly faced with the human cost of the last few months. Because deep down? That baby being his made everything different.I groaned, a sound of pure, unadulterated exhaustion ripping from my throat as I threw the folder back down onto the conference table."Look at the way I look, Lucien!" I motioned to myself, my hands trembling violently as I indicated my face. "I have dark circles under my eyes. My hair is very messy. And I haven't had a single thing to eat today because instead of getting to work by nine in the morning like everybody else in this damn building, I have to get here at seven to finish the pile of endless files you gave me! And I have to close at eleven at night, sometimes almost midnight, just to keep up with your moving goalposts!"

The tears finally spilled over, hot and tracking fast down my pale cheeks. The sheer weight of the routine he had locked me into felt like armor that had finally grown too heavy to wear. "I am starving, I am exhausted, and I am completely hollowed out by you. And you stand there wondering when it happened? It happens every single day.