Cameron’s question hung between us.

His arm was still around my waist, and I could feel the weight of his exhaustion against me. For a moment, I forgot he was my boss.

Then I remembered.

I gently placed my hands against his chest and stepped back.

“Mr. Reed, you’re drunk. Whatever you’re feeling tonight, we should talk about it tomorrow.”

He looked at me for several seconds.

“Tomorrow,” he repeated bitterly. “That’s what everyone says. Tomorrow, when the cameras are on. Tomorrow, when the lawyers arrive. Tomorrow, when everyone has decided what I’m allowed to feel.”

I frowned.

“Who has decided that?”

He laughed, but there was no humor in it.

“My family. My fiancée. The board of directors. Apparently, even my future wife had a schedule for when I was allowed to be unhappy.”

He lowered himself onto the couch again and covered his face with both hands.

I went to the kitchen, filled a glᴀss of water, and brought it to him.

“Drink this.”

He stared at the glᴀss.

“Are you ordering me around?”

“Yes.”

For the first time that night, a genuine smile appeared on his face.

“Interesting. Nobody does that.”

“Then perhaps you should spend more time with people who aren’t afraid of you.”

His smile disappeared.

He looked at me carefully.

“That’s exactly why I came here.”

I sat in the armchair opposite him.

“Cameron, what happened?”

He took a long breath.

“Victoria didn’t just leave me, Emma. She left me after signing an agreement with my biggest compeтιтor.”

My stomach тιԍнтened.

“What agreement?”

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded document. His fingers struggled to open it.

I recognized the logo immediately.

Blackwood International.

Reed Global’s most aggressive compeтιтor.

“They’ve been negotiating for months,” he said. “Victoria was supposed to marry me in three weeks. Instead, she used everything I told her about the company’s upcoming merger to help Blackwood undermine the deal.”

I stared at him.

“Does your board know?”

“Not yet.”

“Then why are you sitting here instead of calling your lawyers?”

He looked at me.

“Because I don’t know who I can trust anymore.”

Something about that answer made my heart ache.

This man controlled billions of dollars, employed thousands of people, and could make an entire financial market react with one announcement.

Yet he was sitting on my secondhand couch, drinking water from a chipped glᴀss, looking like someone had taken away the one thing money couldn’t replace.

Trust.

I reached for the document.

“May I?”

He handed it to me.

I read the first page, then the second.

And suddenly, I noticed something strange.

“Cameron?”

“What?”

“This agreement was signed three days ago.”

“Yes.”

“But the merger proposal it references wasn’t officially approved until yesterday morning.”

His expression changed.

I turned another page.

“Someone gave Blackwood confidential information before the board approved the transaction.”

He slowly sat upright.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell my legal team.”

“No. Look at this clause.”

I pointed to a paragraph near the bottom.

“This section says Blackwood will receive compensation if Reed Global withdraws from the merger. But the compensation isn’t paid by Blackwood. It’s paid through a third-party holding company.”

Cameron leaned closer.

“That’s impossible.”

“Why?”

“Because that holding company belongs to my family.”

I looked up.

“Your family?”

He nodded slowly.

“My father established it before he died.”

The room became painfully quiet.

Then Cameron said something that made my blood run cold.

“Emma, my father died believing someone inside this company was stealing from him.”

I stopped breathing for a moment.

“What are you saying?”

He looked toward the dark window.

“I spent five years trying to prove he was wrong. I thought he had become paranoid near the end of his life.”

His voice cracked slightly.

“Tonight, I found out he was right.”

Before I could respond, his phone began vibrating.

The screen displayed a name.

VICTORIA.

Cameron stared at it.

Then another notification appeared.

A message.

You should have stayed at the office tonight. We know exactly where you are.

My stomach dropped.

I looked at him.

“Who sent that?”

He didn’t answer.

Instead, his phone rang again.

This time, the caller ID displayed:

REED GLOBAL — BOARD CHAIRMAN.

Cameron answered.

“What?”

A man’s voice came through the speaker, loud enough for me to hear.

“Cameron, where the hell are you? We have an emergency meeting at seven tomorrow morning.”

“It’s midnight.”

“Your fiancée has just delivered evidence suggesting you’ve been concealing financial irregularities. The board wants an explanation.”

Cameron’s face became completely expressionless.

“What evidence?”

“Transfers from the family holding company. Millions of dollars. Your authorization appears on several documents.”

“That authorization is forged.”

“Then I suggest you prove it. Because if you don’t, we will remove you as CEO before the markets open.”

The call ended.

For several seconds, Cameron didn’t move.

Then he slowly placed his phone on the table.

I looked at the document again.

“Someone is setting you up.”

He nodded.

“And they know I don’t have enough time to stop them.”

I stood up.

“Then we’ll find out who did it.”

He looked at me as if I’d just suggested we rob a bank.

“We?”

“Yes, we. Unless you prefer being falsely accused of stealing from your own company.”

For the first time that night, his eyes sharpened.

“Emma, you have no idea what you’re getting involved in.”

“Actually, I have a pretty good idea. I’m getting involved with a very rude, very drunk CEO who showed up at my apartment wearing a three-thousand-dollar suit and refusing to explain himself.”

Despite everything, he laughed.

Then his expression softened.

“Why are you helping me?”

I hesitated.

Because the truth was, I didn’t know.

Perhaps because I’d spent two years watching him carry the weight of an entire company without ever asking anyone for help.

Perhaps because, beneath his arrogance, I had just discovered a man who was terrified of being betrayed again.

Or perhaps because I had seen something in his eyes that I couldn’t ignore.

“Because someone is trying to destroy you,” I finally answered. “And I don’t think they should get away with it.”

He stared at me.

Then he reached for his phone.

“Call my driver. I need to get back to the office.”

I shook my head.

“Absolutely not. You’re barely able to stand.”

“Emma—”

“Your office can wait until morning. You’re staying here until you’re sober enough to make decisions.”

He opened his mouth to argue.

Then glanced down at my kitten pajamas.

A faint smile appeared.

“Do you always threaten your guests?”

“Only the ones who arrive uninvited.”

He leaned back.

“Then I suppose I’m lucky.”

I rolled my eyes and went to get a blanket.

But as I pᴀssed him, his voice stopped me.

“Emma?”

I turned.

“Thank you.”

Two simple words.

Yet coming from Cameron Reed, they sounded almost impossible.

I placed the blanket beside him and headed toward my bedroom.

I had barely closed the door when I heard his phone ring again.

Then his voice.

Low.

Urgent.

And completely different from the broken man who had arrived at my apartment.

“No. She has nothing to do with this.”

A pause.

“I don’t care what Victoria told you. Leave Emma Carter out of it.”

Another pause.

Then, in a voice that made my entire body freeze, he said:

“If anyone touches her, this stops being a business dispute.”

I stood motionless behind the bedroom door.

Who was he talking to?

And why had my name suddenly become part of whatever nightmare was unfolding inside Reed Global?

Then came the sentence that changed everything.

“I know you were the one who arranged my father’s accident. Don’t make the mistake of thinking I won’t prove it.”

My hand flew to my mouth.

His father’s accident?

I had heard that story before.

Not from Cameron.

Not from anyone at Reed Global.

But from my own mother.

Because twenty years ago, my father had been the private accountant responsible for investigating the financial records of Reed Global.

And three weeks before Cameron’s father died, my father had disappeared.

The next morning, I found Cameron standing in my kitchen, completely sober, wearing the same expensive suit from the night before.

He was staring at an old pH๏τograph on my refrigerator.

A pH๏τograph of my parents.

His face had gone pale.

“Emma,” he whispered.

I followed his gaze.

He pointed at the man standing beside my mother.

“That’s your father?”

“Yes. Why?”

Cameron slowly turned toward me.

Then he said something I would never forget.

“Your father wasn’t missing because he stole money from my family.”

He swallowed hard.

“He disappeared because he discovered who was stealing it.”

And before I could ask another question, Cameron placed his phone on the kitchen counter.

On the screen was an old pH๏τograph of three men standing outside Reed Global’s original headquarters.

One was Cameron’s father.

One was my father.

And the third man…

Was the current chairman of Reed Global.

The same man who had called Cameron the night before.

The same man who was now scheduled to become the company’s interim CEO at seven that morning.

Cameron looked directly into my eyes.

“Emma, I think your father is still alive.”

My knees nearly gave way.

Then my phone rang.

An unknown number.

I answered with trembling fingers.

A man’s voice came through.

“Emma Carter? Listen carefully. Don’t trust Cameron Reed.”

I froze.

“Who is this?”

The man took a shaky breath.

“It’s your father.”

And then he whispered:

“Your boss is not the man you think he is. And neither is the woman he was supposed to marry.”

The call abruptly disconnected.

Cameron stared at me.

For the first time since I’d met him, the billionaire CEO looked genuinely afraid.

Because he recognized the voice.

And he knew exactly where my father had been hiding for the last twenty years.