Chapter 9
“You’re avoiding me.”
“I own the building.”
“That doesn’t answer the accusation.”
He smiled.
She stood beside him.
Below them, the city glittered.
Nikolai looked at her.
“I once destroyed an engagement because I wanted proof someone loved me without money.”
“I remember.”
“It was manipulative.”
“Yes.”
“Possibly insane.”
“Definitely.”
He laughed softly.
Then became serious.
“I won’t do that again.”
Wren turned toward him.
“No tests?”
“No tests.”
“No fake bankruptcies?”
“No.”
“No secret investigations into my loyalty?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Nikolai reached into his pocket.
Wren immediately stepped backward.
“If that is a ring, I’m throwing you off this building.”
He laughed.
“It’s not.”
He opened his hand.
A key.
Wren frowned.
“What is that?”
“The penthouse.”
“I already have staff access.”
“No.”
He placed it in her palm.
“Not staff access.”
Her expression changed.
“Nikolai.”
“I’m not asking you to move in.”
“Good.”
“I’m asking you to come upstairs for dinner.”
“That requires a key?”
“I’m planning ahead.”
She looked at him for a long moment.
Then closed her fingers around it.
“One dinner.”
“One.”
“And I’m not cooking.”
“I have a chef.”
“Of course you do.”
“And Wren?”
She stopped.
“No tests,” he said again.
Her expression softened.
“Then no pretending.”
“Agreed.”
---
One year later, Nikolai stood in the same dining room where he had told Elise his empire was gone.
The mahogany table was still there.
The city still burned gold beneath the windows.
But the forged documents were gone.
So were the lies.
Wren stood opposite him.
Not in a maid’s uniform.
Not in an employee’s suit.
Barefoot.
Wearing one of his shirts.
She looked at the small velvet box in his hand and narrowed her eyes.
“You promised no tests.”
“This isn’t one.”
“You promised no manipulation.”
“None.”
“And if I say no?”
“I’ll put the ring away, order dinner, and spend tomorrow trying not to look devastated.”
Wren smiled.
“Better answer.”
Nikolai opened the box.
The diamond was smaller than Elise’s had been.
Deliberately.
Months earlier, Wren had once stopped outside a jewelry store and pointed toward a simple vintage ring.
“That,” she had said, “looks like something someone wears because they love it, not because they want strangers to know what it cost.”
Nikolai remembered.
Of course he remembered.
Wren stared at the ring.
Then at him.
“You spent your entire life testing people,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“And?”
“And I finally learned the test was the problem.”