“That’s it?”

“What should I have done?”

“Reacted?”

“I did react.”

“Mr. Reed—”

“Cameron.”

“Cameron,” I corrected, and his eyes softened in a way that made me immediately regret it. “That is not reacting. That is politely accepting an emotional stabbing.”

His mouth twitched.

“You’re surprisingly violent in cat pajamas.”

“You have no idea.”

For a moment, something easy passed between us.

Something almost normal.

Then his expression darkened.

“She said I chose Reed Global over her. That I loved control more than people. That I wouldn’t recognize intimacy if it was handed to me in a signed contract.”

I sat slowly in the armchair across from him.

“Was she right?”

The question slipped out before I could stop it.

Cameron looked at me.

In the office, asking him something that direct would have been career suicide.

Here, barefoot and exhausted, I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t curious.

He leaned back, eyes fixed on mine.

“Probably.”

The honesty startled me.

Then he added, “But she didn’t leave because I couldn’t love her.”

Something in his voice changed.

Sharper.

Colder.

More like the CEO I knew.

“She left because she lost patience.”

“Patience for what?”

He looked at the glass in his hand.

“For me to give her what she really wanted.”

“Which was?”

“Access.”

The word landed heavily.

I frowned. “Access to what?”

Cameron didn’t answer immediately.

Outside, a siren wailed somewhere down the avenue, fading into the restless hum of Manhattan at midnight.

Inside, my apartment felt suspended in a strange, dangerous intimacy.

He dragged a hand through his hair.

“My father built Reed Global like a fortress. Layers of holding companies. Private divisions. Partnerships no one outside a closed circle understands.”

I knew that much.

Reed Global wasn’t just one company. It was an empire wearing a corporate logo.

“When I became CEO,” he continued, “I inherited the public structure. Real estate, logistics, communications, infrastructure. The clean version.”

“The clean version?” I repeated.

His eyes lifted.

“That’s already more than I should have said.”

A chill moved through me.

He smiled faintly.

“There it is again.”

“This isn’t funny.”

“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”

He set the glass on the coffee table with careful precision, as if controlling the movement was the only thing keeping him from falling apart.

“Vanessa’s family wanted a merger through marriage. Old money married to old machinery. Her mother practically planned the wedding before our first date.”

“That sounds romantic.”

“It was efficient.”

“Dear God.”

His gaze lowered, almost ashamed.

“I thought efficiency was enough.”

The sadness in that sentence caught me off guard.

Not because I pitied him.

Because for the first time, I understood something fundamental about Cameron Reed.

He wasn’t cold because he felt nothing.

He was cold because feeling things had never been safe.

I should have made him sleep on the couch right then.

I should have handed him a blanket, called a car for the morning, and locked myself in my bedroom with every bad decision I had nearly made.

Instead, I asked, “Why did you come here?”

He looked at me for a long time.

Too long.

“Because when everything went quiet after she left,” he said, “I realized I didn’t want to call anyone who knew me socially. I didn’t want pity from people waiting to use it. I didn’t want my father’s silence. I didn’t want Vanessa’s apology.”

His voice dropped.

“I wanted the person who notices when I haven’t eaten.”

My throat tightened.

I hated that I knew exactly what he meant.

Because I did notice.

I noticed everything.

The untouched coffee going cold beside contracts.

The way he rubbed his left temple before board meetings with his father.

The days he skipped lunch and snapped at no one, which was somehow worse than snapping.

The way his signature grew sharper when he was angry.

The way he paused outside conference room seven every Thursday before the finance call, as if bracing for impact.

I noticed because that was my job.

At least, that was what I told myself.

“You pay me to notice,” I said.

“No.” His eyes held mine. “I pay you to manage my calendar. You notice because you care.”

My heart made a stupid, dangerous little movement.

I stood too quickly.

“You are very drunk.”

“Not drunk enough to be wrong.”

“Yes, actually, that is exactly how drunk works.”

He leaned forward, elbows on knees.

“Emma.”

My name sounded different in his mouth tonight.

At work, it was clipped and efficient.

Emma, move the Tokyo call.

Emma, get me Stanton’s report.

Emma, cancel lunch.

Now it sounded like a confession.

I wrapped my arms around myself.

“You shouldn’t say things like this to me.”

“Why?”

“Because tomorrow you’ll regret them.”

His expression changed.

“And you?”

I looked away.

That was answer enough.

For several seconds, neither of us spoke.

Then a soft meow came from behind the kitchen counter.

Cameron blinked.

A tiny gray head appeared, followed by cautious paws and enormous green eyes.

“No,” I whispered. “Muffin, don’t.”

My cat ignored me, because Muffin respected no hierarchy known to man or capitalism.

She padded across the rug and leapt onto the couch beside Cameron.

He stared at her.

She stared back.

“This is a cat,” he said.

“That is usually what kitten pajamas imply.”