Chapter 5
A billionaire CEO texting an apology wasn’t just rare. It was unheard of and it made her muster an amused laugh. Yet.. Liam wasn’t like other men in power. He was ice and control on the outside, but beneath that, Adele could sense he was fighting hard to bury tons of emotions,
She’d seen it in the way his jaw clenched when he was challenged. In how his gaze flickered to her lips when he thought she wasn’t looking. And definitely in the way his voice dropped when he said her name.
She slammed the fridge shut and walked back to the couch, heart pounding.
She picked up her phone.
Adele: An apology for?
Three dots appeared. Then disappeared. Then again.
Her pulse quickened.
Liam: For being an ass. For not saying more when I should have, for my lack of action. For treating what should be so lackadaisically.
She blinked. Not just an apology. A detailed one. From LiamLancaster.
He followed up:
Liam: You were right. And I hate that I didn’t say it out loud. I just…
Dot. Dot. Dot.
Liam: Forget it. This was probably a mistake.
She stared. Her fingers hovered above the screen.
No. She wasn’t letting him walk away from this with a convenient escape.
Adele: Finish your sentence. You can’t leave me confused like this
Seconds passed. A minute. Then—
Liam: You get under my skin.
Three seconds later—
Liam: I don’t like it. But it’s the truth.
Adele’s breath caught. That wasn’t professional. That wasn’t even close.
It was personal. Too personal. Intimate. Honest.
And shocking.
Liam paced his apartment like a raging dog.
Downtown skyline blazing behind him, collar undone, tie abandoned on the arm of a chair. He didn’t usually text employees — that crossed too many lines. But Adele? She wasn’t just another employee.
She saw him. She was real to him. And for a man who’d spent years building walls so high even he couldn’t see over them, that was terrifying.
But it was also addictive.
She hadn’t responded.
He didn’t know what he wanted. For her to push back? To tell him off? Or…
He hadn’t felt like this since—
No. He shut the thought down. Don’t go there.
That part of his life was over.
His phone lit up again.
Adele: So what happens now?
He stared.
Taking this further could be dangerous, and would be a breach of professionalism. He thought better but instead, he typed.
Liam: Dinner. Tomorrow. Just us. No work talk.
A pause. Then:…
Adele: Is that a date, Mr. Lancaster?
Liam: Only if you stop calling me that.
He smiled — actually smiled — for the first time in a very long while.
He hated how much he lived feeling this.
The restaurant was discreet, very fanciful, and upscale. Everyone there seemed to belong to a particular class
Liam was already seated before she arrived, He was at a private booth at the back. No assistant. No security. Just him. Dressed in dark gray, no tie, the first few buttons of his shirt undone. Casual, but dangerous.
He stood when she approached.
“You came,” he said, like he wasn’t entirely sure she would.
She arched a brow. “You invited me.”
He pulled the seat for her to sit “You look… different.”
“It’s called makeup and anxiety, plus I clean up well,” she said smiling revealing her set of dimples.
But she knew what he meant. She had put more effort into her appearance. Not because she wanted to impress him — at least that’s what she told herself — but because tonight wasn’t just about apologies.
It was more and she was curious to find out.
Once the waiter had left them with drinks, she asked the question that was hanging in the air, “So, why did you want to have dinner with me?”
He leaned back, his eyes boring into hers. “I’ve been trying to answer that myself.”
“Let me guess,” she said. “You think this is a bad idea. That I’m a complication, not up to your standards, and that you should stay away,” she said, speaking from the last trauma
He gave her an incredulous look. Not expecting her to have said all of that
“So?” she pushed on
Still silence.
Then finally — “Because I don’t want to.”
Her breath paused for a millisecond.
And just like that, the air between them became tense.
Dinner was a blur of wine and tension. He listened. Really listened. And it made her feel heard, like she mattered. She talked, not just about work, but about her love for old films, the fact that she secretly hated sushi and its rawness, how she felt people pretended to like it and how she once dreamed of writing a novel no one would read.
He laughed once — a low, real sound that made her heart soften. She was seeing a side of Liam she hadn’t known existed and people don't see.
But it was when dessert came that the atmosphere truly changed.
A pause. A beat.
Then he leaned forward, his voice low. “Can I ask you something personal?”
She nodded cautiously.
“What happened to you?” he asked. “Before you started working here”
Her chest tightened, the air had become stiff again. That wasn’t fair. That wasn’t supposed to happen tonight.
But instead of shutting down, she whispered, “Someone loved the idea of me. Not the real thing.”
He nodded slowly. “I get that.”
“You do?”
“I built an empire,” he said, “so I’d never have to need anyone. They don't know me, but just their idea of me, and I prefer it as so if I'm being honest “.
The honesty between them buzzed like electricity.
Her voice was almost a whisper. “So what do we do with this?”
He looked at her — not with calculation, but heat.
“I could kiss you right now,” he said, “and it would be the smartest mistake I’ve ever made.”
This made her laugh wholeheartedly.
“Why don’t you?” she asked, teasingly and hoping that he actually does.
He stared at her for a long moment, then stood and walked around to her side of the booth.
He didn’t touch her — not yet. Just looked at her, as if giving her one last chance to back out.
She didn’t.
So he leaned in and kissed her — slow, deep, devastating.
It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t professional.
It was rough and hungry and real and wrong in all the right ways.
And when they finally pulled apart, both breathing unevenly, he said one thing:
“This changes everything.”
