Adrian Vale did not spiral.
That was the lie he told himself as the city blurred past the car window, lights streaking like errors in a system that never glitched.
His jaw ached from how tightly it was clenched.
He replayed it once.
Twice.
Again.
The bathroom.
The defiance in her eyes.
The way she shoved him back like he was nothing.
And worse
The way she'd looked at him afterward.
Not shaken.
Not impressed.
Not tempted.
Disgusted.
His phone buzzed.
A message from his mother about the alliance dinner. About optics. About how impressed Elias' family had been.
Adrian didn't respond.
Instead, he opened ValeTech's internal systems. Logs. Access points. Location pings that weren't supposed to exist but did.
Nyra's profile came up immediately.
Inactive.
No login.
No swipe.
No trace.
His chest tightened.
She was gone again.
And this time, she hadn't bothered warning him.
"That shouldn't bother you," he muttered to himself.
She was a problem employee. A liability. A walking disruption with too much talent and zero respect for hierarchy.
That was all.
So why did his hands shake when he closed the app?
Back at his penthouse, silence greeted him like a challenge. He loosened his tie, then yanked it off entirely, tossing it aside. The suit followed discarded with irritation, like constraints he hadn't agreed to wear.
He poured a drink.
Didn't touch it.
Instead, he stood by the window, staring down at the city he controlled contracts in, markets in, futures in.
And yet
One woman had just walked away from him without a second thought.
"She provokes," he said aloud, as if the walls needed convincing. "She disrespects authority. She enjoys pushing boundaries."
That had to be it.
That pull in his chest?
That heat behind his eyes?
It wasn't desire.
It was the instinct to dominate chaos. To force order onto something wild.
That's what men like him did.
Still
Her smile at dinner haunted him. Not the sharp one she used on him, but the relaxed one. The one she gave Elias' mother. The way she looked like she belonged somewhere that wasn't under his control.
Adrian slammed his glass down, the liquor sloshing over the rim.
He hadn't meant to kiss her.
That truth landed harder than he liked.
It hadn't been strategy.
It hadn't been discipline.
It had been impulse.
And Adrian Vale did not act on impulse.
He reopened his laptop.
If she wouldn't come to him
He would find her.
Not to apologize.
Not to explain.
To reassert distance. Control. Professional boundaries.
That was what he told himself.
But as the city slept beneath him, one undeniable truth surfaced, sharp and unwanted:
Nyra wasn't breaking his control.
She was exposing how fragile it was when she wasn't there.
And Adrian hated nothing more than weakness he couldn't outrun.