Page 16 of Ruin
“You’re going to pull forty thousand from that equity. Twenty percent interest. I’ll have the paperwork drafted by tomorrow.” Her gaze lifts, steady and merciless. “You’ll sign it. Then you’ll continue managing the restaurant—under supervision. Your books will be audited monthly by someone I appoint. If the numbers slip again, I don’t renegotiate.”
She closes the tablet with a soft click.
“I don’t make offers I haven’t already verified.”
She looks at me. "That's more valuable than whatever Lionel was about to do. Dead men can't pay debts. Frightened men pay them early."
Gerald is staring at her like she's an angel.
He doesn't understand that she just saved his life and chained him to me permanently in the same breath, but I do.
And something in my chest shifts, clicks into place like a round chambering.
"Lionel," I say. "Untie him."
Selene stands, smooths her dress, and walks out of the room without looking back.
Like it was nothing.
Like restructuring a man's entire existence between his potential death and his controlled survival is just Tuesday.
I follow her into the corridor.
"Where did you learn that?" I ask.
She glances over her shoulder. "Harvard doesn't just teach law. It teaches leverage."
We don't talk on the drive back to the penthouse. Don't need to. She stares out the window, one hand resting on her knee, and I can practically see her mind working: filing, sorting, calculating.
By the time Peter pulls into the garage, I've made a decision.
We make it back to my office before I decide I'm done talking.
She's mid-sentence—outlining a strategy for restructuring the shell companies—when I round the desk, grab the back of her neck, and bend her over the mahogany.
She gasps. Papers scatter. The crystal whiskey glass topples and shatters on the floor.
My hand stays on the back of her neck, pressing her cheek against the cold wood.
She doesn't fight, doesn't resist, but she doesn't submit easily either—there's tension in her body, a coiled readiness, like she's deciding whether to let this happen.
"You walked into that room," I say against her ear, "and handled a situation that would have made most men in my organization vomit."
"Yes." Her voice is steady despite the position.
"You restructured a debt recovery in under two minutes."
"Yes."
"And you did it wearing my collar."
I feel her smile against the desk. "Of course."
I push the skirt of her dress up around her waist, run my fingers along the edge of her underwear without removing it.
Just tracing. Making her wait.
"Everything you learned…" I tell her. "Every skill. Every connection. Every ounce of power you gained in that year." I lean down, lips brushing the shell of her ear. "I gave you that. I decided to send you away. I decided to let you grow. You exist like this because I allowed it."
