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The office was empty when we returned after the celebration. Our team had gone home, exhausted from the week’s battles. Rhys and I stood in Father’s study, the space that had become our sanctuary, surrounded by evidence of our partnership. The adrenaline was fading, replaced by bone-deep exhaustion and something electric that had been building for weeks.

“We make a good team,” he said quietly.

“We do.” I could not look away from him. “In Rotterdam, when I said that kiss was a mistake…”

“You were right. This situation is difficult enough.”

“Let me finish.” I moved closer, my heart pounding. The crisis had stripped away my pretenses. Seeing the company nearly torn apart made me realize what was truly at stake, and it was more than just business. “I was lying. To you and to myself. The mistake was not the kiss. The mistake was pretending it did not mean anything.”

His eyes widened slightly. “Sloane…”

“Every night we have spent in this room, working together, I have wanted to do this.” I closed the distance between us, reaching up to cup his face. “Tell me I am not alone in this.”

“You are not.” His voice was rough. “God, you are not. I have been trying so hard to maintain distance, to remember this is just a job, but…” He kissed me, and it was nothing like Rotterdam. This was not tentative or questioning. This was certain and demanding and felt absolutely right. We broke apart only long enough to breathe, his hands in my hair, mine clutching his shoulders.

“This is insane,” I said against his lips. “Your contract, the test, everything…”

“I know.”

“We are going to make everything ten times more strenuous.”

“I know.” He pulled back enough to look at me, his grey eyes intense. “But I do not care. These past weeks, getting to know you, the real you, not just the heiress or the businesswoman… I have never felt this way about anyone.”

“I cannot promise this will work. When the six months are over…”

“Then we figure it out together.” He kissed me again, softer this time. “No more pretending.”

We stayed in the study until dawn, talking about everything we had been holding back. He told me about his life before Father found him, about growing up in foster care and learning to read people as a survival skill. He spoke of the pride and shame of using those skills to con people before deciding there had to be a better way. I told him about the loneliness of being groomed for greatness, of having every friendship scrutinized as a potential corporate connection, and of loving and resenting Father in equal measure.

“He would have liked you,” I said, my head resting on his shoulder as we watched the sun rise. “The real you, not the character he hired you to play.”

“I wish I could have known him outside of the arrangement.”

“Maybe that is part of the test. Maybe he wanted to see if we could find something authentic in the middle of his manipulation.”

His arm tightened around me. “Whatever his reasons, I am grateful. I would not have met you otherwise.”

The next weeks transformed everything. Publicly, we maintained our rival dynamic, but the tension between us read differently now. Board members started making knowing comments about how our disagreements seemed less hostile and more like intellectual sparring.

“You two remind me of your parents,” Marcus Chen said one day. “Your father and mother used to argue like that. Everyone thought they hated each other until the wedding announcement.”

The question neither of us asked but both were thinking became heavier each day. What happens when the test ends? Rhys’s contract was explicit. At the six-month mark, he would walk away with his payment and I would take control. There was no provision for what we had become to each other.

“We have eight weeks left,” I said one night.

He looked up, understanding immediately. “Eight weeks.”

“And then what?”

“Then we figure out how to rewrite your father’s rules.” He came around the desk to pull me into his arms. “I am not walking away from you, Sloane. Contract or no contract. We will find a way.”

I wanted to believe him. But Father’s ghost still haunted this building, and I could not shake the feeling that the hardest part of his test was still ahead.