The sleek black Aston Martin pulls up to the curb like a predator who's already chosen its prey.
Rhys leans across the passenger seat, one arm draped over the steering wheel, those blue-green eyes catching the afternoon light in a way that makes my stomach flip against my will.
The window slides down with a whisper of expensive engineering.
"Get in."
"I was just heading to pick up Milo from daycare. I don't have time for—"
"Tessa already grabbed him. I texted her an hour ago." He pushes the door open from inside. "You have exactly ninety minutes before she expects you back, and I intend to use every single one of them."
I slide into the leather seat, telling myself this is the conversation where I end things. Where I draw a line in the sand and tell Rhys that whatever game we've been playing stops now.
"Where are we going?"
"Nowhere in particular."
He pulls into traffic, handling the car with the easy confidence of a man who's never had to worry about insurance premiums.
"Sometimes the best conversations happen when you're not trying to get anywhere."
We drive in silence for three blocks before he speaks again.
"You never responded to my last text."
Heat floods my cheeks.
The memory of that night crashes over me—lying in the dark, phone clutched in my hand, typing things I should never have typed while my body ached for something I couldn't name.
"I fell asleep."
"Liar." His mouth curves into that infuriating half-smile. "You read it at 2:47 a.m. and then stared at your screen for six minutes before putting it down. I watched the typing bubble appear and disappear four times."
"That's incredibly creepy, Rhys."
"That's incredibly telling, firefly."
His hand leaves the steering wheel to rest on the center console, inches from my thigh.
"You wanted to respond. You just couldn't figure out what to say that wouldn't make you want more."
I press my legs together, hating how easily he reads me.
"Harrison and Associates landed two new clients this week," he continues, seamlessly shifting gears. "Major accounts, the kind that put Tessa's father's firm back on solid ground for the next decade. I mentioned it before, but I wanted you to know the contracts are signed now. Your friend is safe."
"And I'm supposed to be grateful? Fall into your arms because you made a few phone calls?"
"You're supposed to understand the difference between me and your husband."
He takes a turn that leads us away from the city center, toward the quieter streets near the river.
"Caspian let his family destroy yours. His mother threatened your friend's livelihood, his father accused you of corporate sabotage, and Caspian stood there wringing his hands while the people he's supposed to control tried to take your son away."
"He defended me in court. He told the judge exactly what happened at that dinner."
"After ten months of letting you fend for yourself. After three years of marriage where he couldn't be bothered to show up when it actually mattered." Rhys's jaw tightens, and his fingers drift closer to my knee. "I'm trying to help you build something new, Elara. A life where you don't have to beg for scraps of attention from a man who treats love like a transaction."
His fingertips brush my knee through the fabric of my dress. Just once. Barely there.
My breath catches.
"You're not property to be fought over," he says softly. "You're a woman who deserves someone willing to burn down the world for her. I'm standing here with matches, firefly. I have been since the moment I first saw you."
The city gives way to trees, to quiet streets lined with brownstones that cost more than most people make in a decade.
His hand returns to the steering wheel, and I find myself missing the warmth of his touch in a way that terrifies me.
"Speaking of burning things down," I manage, desperate to redirect, "how much do you actually know about your family's business operations?"
"Enough to be useful. Why?"
"Because someone's been systematically destroying Voss Global from the inside. Leaked acquisition plans, turned board members, shell companies moving money in circles. Victor thinks I'm involved."
"Victor thinks everyone's involved. The man sees conspiracies in his morning coffee." Rhys takes another turn, bringing us along the waterfront. "Besides, the company's been hemorrhaging problems for years. The Singapore incident alone should have taught them that."
My blood runs cold.
The Singapore incident.
Three words that most people have never heard, that I only know because Caspian mentioned it once—a buried scandal from fifteen years ago, covered up so thoroughly that even the financial press never caught wind.
Only inner circle executives know about Singapore.
"How do you know about that?"
I keep my voice casual, but my pulse is hammering.
Rhys shrugs, eyes on the road.
"Business travels. You pick things up in certain circles."
"The Singapore deal was buried fifteen years ago, Rhys. You would have been nineteen. In exile."
"I didn't say I learned about it then. Information surfaces when you know where to look."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only answer I'm giving you right now."
He pulls the car to a stop outside my building, killing the engine. The sudden silence feels thick, charged.
"We're here."
Neither of us moves.
"Those texts," I hear myself say. "That night. I shouldn't have—"
"You shouldn't have what? Told me what you were wearing? Let me imagine you in that bed, in my apartment, touching yourself while you thought about me?"
He turns in his seat to face me fully, and those blue-green eyes are burning.
"You wanted it, Elara. You still want it. I can see it every time you look at me, every time you remember what happened at that masquerade."
"Rhys—"
"You spent three years starving. I'm offering you a feast." His voice drops low, intimate. "Stop pretending you're not hungry."
I close the distance between us before I can think.
His tongue slides against mine, his hand fisting in my hair with a possessiveness that sends electricity straight down my spine.
His touch is warm, assuming, nothing like Caspian's careful permission-seeking. Rhys kisses like he already knows the ending.
For one breathless moment, I'm back in that moonlit alcove—silk falling away, his mouth learning my body, believing I was finally reconnecting with my husband.
I pull away gasping.
"I can't—I can't do this."
I stumble out of the car, my legs unsteady, and I'm halfway to the building when the dark chocolate torte hits the pavement at my feet.
I spin around.
Caspian stands on the sidewalk half a block away, face carved from stone, another pastry box clutched in white-knuckled hands. He must have been parked there. Watching.
"From Amara's." His voice is ice and broken glass. "Your favorite."
"Caspian, this isn't—"
"My wife with her tongue down my cousin's throat. What exactly isn't this?"
Rhys steps out of the Aston Martin, and the tension between the two men crackles like a live wire.
"Walk away, cousin. This doesn't concern you."
"Everything about her concerns me. She's still my wife."
"I didn't promise you anything." The words tear out of me. "At the courthouse, in that bathroom—I told you it didn't fix anything. You don't get to show up here acting betrayed when I never said I was yours again."
The hurt that flashes across his face almost makes me take it back.
Almost.
"You need to respect my boundaries, Caspian. I'm figuring out what I want, and throwing pastries isn't helping."
He stares at me for a long moment, something shuttering behind those ice-blue eyes.
Then he walks away without another word.
That night, after Milo is asleep, I pull out the envelope and add it to my list.
Singapore incident—only inner circle executives know.
Rhys was in exile when it happened.
HOW DOES HE KNOW?