Chapter 6

Cillian handed him a business card.

Felix glanced down.

Cold sweat instantly dampened his palm.

Cillian Emerson.

Founder of Halewood.

Felix had heard his father mention Cillian before. In legal circles, that name did not represent only a successful attorney. It represented connections deep enough to make powerful people lower their voices.

Senior jurists. People inside the courts. Regulators with real authority.

And beyond law, Cillian’s network reached like a precisely woven web into finance, real estate, technology, and certain darker corners where disputes did not survive daylight.

He was not merely a legal adviser. More often, he played cleaner and strategist for major players. Cross-border mergers, political-business conflicts no one wanted exposed, cases that looked dead until he found the procedural flaw or evidentiary crack that flipped the board.

“Oh, you’re Mr. Emerson from Halewood.” Felix’s attitude performed a spectacular U-turn. “This is completely my mistake. I had no idea this was your room. I apologize.”

“Does Mr. Lowell still believe your wife is in my room?” Cillian asked calmly.

“No, no, of course not. A woman like her would never be worthy of your attention.” Felix stepped back. “I’m sorry for disturbing you. I hope you won’t take offense.”

Cillian gave a faint nod and was about to close the door.

Then Felix’s gaze caught the mark near the back of his collar.

Fresh. Red. Very obviously new.

“Wait, Mr. Emerson.” Felix pointed at Cillian’s neck, choosing his words carefully. “There seems to be something on your neck.”

Cillian did not cover it.

Instead, he turned his neck slightly, displaying the kiss mark openly for Felix to see. “Why? Is Mr. Lowell interested in my private life?”

The force in his eyes crushed Felix’s little probe before it could stand upright.

“No, no, that’s not what I meant.” Felix forced an obsequious smile. “I won’t disturb your rest any longer. Goodbye.”

Harlow hid in the bathroom and heard the entire exchange between Cillian and Felix.

Who would have thought that the crisis nearly making her heart stop could be solved by Cillian Emerson with one business card?

It proved, once again, that the penniless boy from six years ago was no longer who he had been.

“Come out,” Cillian said.

Harlow opened the bathroom door and stepped out.

Cillian stood by the floor-to-ceiling window.

“Mr. Emerson, thank you for helping me,” Harlow said.

The thanks came with guilt attached.

After all, he had not exactly helped out of the shining goodness of his heart.

Sure enough, her gratitude did not move Cillian’s expression by even a millimeter.

“Thank you?” He gave a soft laugh, edged with mockery. “You dragged me into your trap, and all I get is thank you?”

“Then… what do you want?”

Cillian began walking toward her, slow and deliberate.

“I don’t play lover for free.”

The words had barely fallen when he reached out and seized her wrist. His grip was so hard Harlow could not stop the small sound of pain that escaped her. A second later, an irresistible force yanked her forward, and she fell hard onto the bed behind her.

Harlow startled and tried to sit up, but Cillian was already over her. One knee braced against the mattress, his arms planted on either side of her body, trapping her completely beneath his shadow.

“What are you doing?” Harlow shoved at his chest. “Aren’t you the man of principles who doesn’t sleep with married women?”

“Do my principles matter?” He looked down at her, anger and resentment churning in his eyes. “When you wanted me to be your boyfriend, you did everything you could to make me date you. Today, when you wanted me to play your lover, you did everything you could to drag me into the water. Between us, hasn’t it always been whatever Miss Gideon decides?”

Harlow was surrounded by the cold scent of him and the heat of his body.

Her head spun.

She thought of back then.

Back then, she had been the one who liked Cillian first. She had been the one who provoked him first.

At the time, Cillian had been the son of the Gideon family’s housekeeper. The first time she saw him was in the Gideon garden. She had been playing Frisbee with her golden retriever when the colorful disc veered off course and nearly hit Cillian, who had come to deliver medicine for his mother.

Cillian had lifted his hand and caught the spinning Frisbee cleanly out of the air.

Under the sunlight, he wore a simple white shirt with the sleeves slightly rolled. The line of his forearm was smooth and lean. His face was handsome, his eyes deep as still water.

Harlow fell straight in.

When Cillian handed the Frisbee back, their fingertips brushed for the smallest instant. A strange current shot through Harlow’s body, and her heart began racing.

Right then, she made a decision.

She was going to chase him.

After that, Harlow chased Cillian all over creation.

At first, Cillian refused her firmly. He knew that with his poor background, he and the precious eldest daughter of the Gideon family belonged to different worlds. But Harlow was not someone who gave up because of a no. His refusal only made her more determined.

Every Friday in constitutional law class, the professor took attendance and somehow always found one extra student in the room. In the cafeteria, Harlow would always appear at exactly the time Cillian ate, always coincidentally sit across from him, and always coincidentally have ordered too much of the meat dishes he never wanted to waste money on, before transferring all of it onto his tray. At the bar where Cillian worked part-time, she would show up every few days with friends, ordering the expensive drinks with the best commissions until his coworkers started calling her his personal goddess of tips.

For three years, she was like a beam of sunlight with no sense of boundaries, stubbornly trying to force her way into his locked-up heart.

Cillian hid from her. Avoided her. Got annoyed by her.

And somewhere along the way, he got used to her being there.

In the end, he became hers.

But what about her?

After three months together, right when his love was at its deepest, she pulled herself out of his life and dumped him to marry someone else.

She had turned Cillian’s world upside down.

Because of what happened between them, his mother was even in a car accident and lost both legs. Disabled for life.

“Do you remember how Miss Gideon teased me, slept with me, and threw me away?” Cillian’s hand closed around her throat. His eyes were red, hatred burning through them. “The only difference now is that I’m no longer someone you can use and discard whenever you feel like it.”

“Let go of me!”