Chapter 3

Damien Ashford was not a man who accepted powerlessness.

The morning after the board meeting, he was in my office at seven a.m., uninvited.

Yuki tried to stop him. He walked right past her.

"Ms. Leclair," he said, closing the door behind him. His voice was controlled, but I could see the tension in his jaw, the coiled anger in his shoulders. "We need to talk."

I didn't look up from my laptop. "You don't have an appointment."

"I don't need one," he said, placing both hands on my desk and leaning forward. "You just bought my family's company out from under me. I think that earns me five minutes."

I looked up slowly. His face was inches from mine. Close enough to see the flecks of gold in his dark eyes. Close enough to smell his cologne—the same one. After all these years, the same one.

My stomach clenched. Not with longing. With memory.

"Sit down, Mr. Ashford," I said, my voice ice. "You're in my building."

Something shifted in his expression. A flicker of surprise. He wasn't used to being commanded. Especially not by a woman.

He sat.

"I've done my research on you," he said, crossing one leg over the other, affecting a casual posture. "Leclair Capital appeared out of nowhere three years ago. No institutional backing. No venture history. Just a single, anonymous investor who turned a small AI startup into a two-billion-dollar empire."

He tilted his head, studying me. "Who are you, really?"

"I'm the woman who owns your company," I said. "That's all you need to know."

"No," he said, his eyes narrowing. "There's something else. The way you looked at me in that boardroom. That wasn't business. That was personal."

My heart rate spiked, but I kept my face perfectly still.

"You're flattering yourself," I said.

He leaned back, a slow, dangerous smile spreading across his face. "Am I? Because I've been in boardrooms my entire life, Ms. Leclair. I know the difference between a hostile takeover and a vendetta."

The word landed between us like a grenade.

"This is a restructuring," I said. "Nothing more."

"Then prove it," he challenged. "Have dinner with me. Let's discuss the transition like civilized adults."

It was a power play. He wanted to get me on his turf, in his world, where his charm was a weapon.

"No," I said.

"Afraid?" The smile widened.

I stood up, walked around my desk, and stopped directly in front of him. He had to look up at me. A small thing, but it mattered.

"I am going to strip your company down to its bones," I said, my voice quiet and precise. "I am going to fire every loyalist your mother installed. I am going to audit every account, every shell company, every dirty little secret the Ashford family has buried. And when I'm done, the name Ashford will mean nothing."

His smile vanished.

"Unless," I added, pausing at the door, "you'd like to cooperate. In which case, I might let you keep your office."

I opened the door. Yuki was standing outside, holding a tablet.

"Ms. Leclair, your three o'clock is here," Yuki said. "A representative from the Ashford Foundation. A Mrs. Genevieve Ashford."

My blood ran cold.

I hadn't expected her this soon.

I turned back to Damien. He was watching me, and for the first time, there was a glint of something calculating in his eyes.

"Ah," he said softly. "Now it gets interesting."

The door to the elevator opened.

And Genevieve Ashford stepped out.