Chapter 6: After-Hours
1707 Words
Jax’s office was exactly what Sloane expected, and yet somehow worse. It wasn’t just an office; it was a lair. Floor-to-ceiling windows showcased the glittering, indifferent city. The furniture was all hard lines and cold materials—a monolithic desk, angular chairs, and a long, low sofa upholstered in a steel-grey fabric that looked as comfortable as a park bench.
“The palace,” Sloane said, her voice echoing slightly in the vast space.
“The prison,” Jax corrected quietly, tossing his suit jacket over the back of his desk chair. The gesture was surprisingly weary. “Most nights, it feels like the latter.”
He walked to a small, hidden panel near a bookshelf and pressed a button. A section of the wood slid back to reveal a sleek kitchenette, complete with a sink, a mini-fridge, and a coffee machine that looked like it could launch a rocket.
“Of course you have a secret bar,” Sloane muttered, sinking onto the edge of the infamous couch. It was, as promised, moderately comfortable. Barely.
“Water? I have sparkling. Or more champagne, but I feel we’ve met our quota for breakthrough-related intoxication.” He was trying for his usual dry tone, but it fell flat. The energy from the lab—the triumph, the almost-kiss—had dissipated into the awkward reality of their situation.
“Water’s fine.” She watched him move, the efficient, precise way he filled two glasses. CEO Jax was back in control, but the glasses were simple, the water wasn’t poured with a flourish. It felt domestic. Wrong.
He handed her a glass and sat on the opposite end of the sofa, leaving a careful two feet of grey fabric between them. The distance felt like a canyon.
Silence stretched, thick and uncomfortable. The only sound was the faint hum of the building at night.
“This is ridiculous,” Sloane finally said, toying with her glass. “We’re two adults. We’ve negotiated multi-million dollar deals. We shouldn’t be this… weird about sharing a room.”
“We’re not sharing a room,” Jax pointed out, staring straight ahead at the city lights. “We’re sharing the aftermath of a deeply bizarre personal and professional entanglement. The room is the easy part.”
She couldn’t argue with that.
“Why did you do it?” she asked suddenly, the question that had been gnawing at her since the bar. “On the app. Why the whole… ‘ceasefire’ persona? Why not just be you? You could have any woman in this city swiping right on Jax Knight.”
He let out a short, humorless laugh. “That’s the point. They’d be swiping right on the name. The net worth. The caricature in the business journals.” He finally turned his head to look at her. “The last woman I dated seriously sold the details of our ‘romantic getaway’ to a tabloid. The one before that spent the entire relationship angling for a VP position in my marketing department.”
He said it plainly, without self-pity. It was just a fact. “On the app, I was just a mind. And for the first time in a long time, someone liked that mind. Argued with it. Challenged it. Didn’t want a thing from it.” His gaze was intense in the dim light. “You have no idea how refreshing that was.”
She understood. Oh, she understood. The gold-diggers, the social climbers—they came in both genders. “I told SunsetSilhouette things I’ve never told anyone,” she confessed, her voice barely above a whisper. “About the fear. That Verity was just… dumb luck. That I was one bad quarter away from being exposed as a fraud.”
He was quiet for a moment. “I know.”
“Right.” She looked away, the old humiliation warming her cheeks. “Because I told you.”
“No,” he said softly. “Because I feel the same way. Every day.”
Her eyes snapped back to his. The admission hung between them, vulnerable and real. Jax Knight, afraid of being a fraud. It was the most disarming thing he’d ever said.
“Your father…” she ventured, remembering the magazine profiles about the legendary, ruthless Edward Knight.
“Is a hard act to follow,” Jax finished, his jaw tightening. “He built this from scratch. I’m just… the caretaker. The one who can’t let it crumble. Every win feels like maintaining status quo. Every new idea feels like a risk he wouldn’t have taken.” He took a long drink of water. “You build something from nothing. You wouldn’t get it.”
“I get the weight,” she said. “The terrifying weight of something you love being entirely your responsibility. Of everyone’s jobs, their mortgages, their dreams… resting on your next decision.” She pulled her legs up underneath her, facing him more fully. “That’s why I went on the app, too. Everyone at Verity sees me as ‘Sloane the Founder.’ The vision. The rock. Chloe sees me as her mess of a best friend who works too much. There was no one who saw… just me.”
He was watching her now, his expression unreadable in the shadows. “I saw you.”
Two simple words. They stole the air from the room.
The city lights twinkled, indifferent to the quiet earthquake happening in a tower high above it.
“This is a terrible idea,” Sloane breathed, not sure if she was talking about the conversation, the locked door, or the magnetic pull she felt toward him.
“The worst,” Jax agreed, his voice rough. He hadn’t moved an inch closer, but the distance between them seemed to have evaporated.
“We’ll ruin everything. The project. Our companies.”
“Almost certainly.”
“You’re my rival.”
“And you’re mine.”
Another stretch of silence, but this one was different. Charged. Full.
“What if,” Jax said slowly, as if the words were dangerous, “we had a truce? Just for tonight. No Knights. No Archers. No companies. Just… the two people from the app. The ones who actually like each other.”
It was a dangerous, beautiful offer. A ceasefire in a war they were both still fighting.
“Just for tonight,” Sloane repeated, a question and an answer.
He nodded, just once.
And just like that, the tension shifted. It didn’t disappear; it transformed from awkward to anticipatory.
“So,” Sloane said, a tentative smile playing on her lips. “AnonymousUser22. What’s your actual, non-corporate, deepest darkest secret?”
He thought for a moment, a real smile finally touching his eyes. “I have seen every episode of Coastal Cottage Reno. Twice. And I cry every time they reveal the finished kitchen.”
Sloane burst out laughing, the sound loud and free in the quiet office. “No.”
“It’s the shiplap,” he said, deadpan. “It gets me every time. Your turn.”
“I,” she announced dramatically, “am secretly terrified of squirrels. Not in a ‘they’re rabid’ way. In a ‘their little hands are too human and they plot things’ way.”
He threw his head back and laughed, a real, rich, wonderful sound she’d never heard from him before. “Noted. Do not take the billionaire CEO to a park.”
They talked. For hours. They talked about everything and nothing. Favorite bad movies (his was Sharknado, hers was any Christmas movie where a city girl falls for a lumberjack). Childhood dreams (he’d wanted to be an astronaut, she’d wanted to run a zoo). Terrible first dates (his involved a woman who brought her pet ferret, hers involved a man who tried to pay the bill in loose change).
The grey couch became an island. The office, with its oppressive power, faded away. He was just Jax, the man who made terrible puns and had a surprising depth of knowledge about 80s rock bands. She was just Sloane, who could recite the entire script of The Princess Bride and hated the feeling of velvet.
At some point, she found herself lying down, her head propped on a cushion she’d stolen from one of the austere chairs. He’d done the same at the other end. They were facing each other, a foot of space between them, talking in hushed tones as the moon traveled across the windows.
“You’re wrong about the French press, by the way,” she mumbled, sleep starting to tug at her. “Pour-over is superior. It’s science.”
“Your science is anarchy and I reject it,” he murmured back, his eyes closed. He looked younger like this. Softer.
Sloane’s last conscious thought was a quiet, internal panic. Oh no. I really, really like him.
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She woke to the gentle, persistent glow of dawn painting the skyline peach and gold. She was warm. And not alone.
Somehow in the night, they had migrated. She was curled on her side. His arm was draped over her waist, his chest a solid, warm wall against her back. His breathing was deep and even against her hair.
She froze, every nerve ending suddenly awake. This was a catastrophic breach of the truce. This was a territory not covered by any ceasefire.
But it felt… profoundly right. Safe. She fit against him as if the space had been designed for her.
She held her breath, terrified to move, terrified to wake him and break the spell. In the peaceful, quiet light of morning, with the weight of his arm around her and the rhythm of his heart against her spine, Sloane Archer faced a truth more terrifying than any quarterly report.
The man she was supposed to hate didn’t feel like an enemy at all.
He felt like coming home.
TO BE CONTINUED…
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Next Chapter Teaser: Morning brings buzzing phones, harsh reality, and a desperate attempt to pretend the night never happened. But a single photo, accidentally captured by building security, threatens to expose their fragile truce to the one audience they can't afford: everyone else.
- Writer
