Page 17 of Silence and Surrender

She ran her hands through her hair, messing it further. “I’m going to Rotterdam to check the shipments.”

“Like hell you are.”

“You don’t control me, Mr. Moreau.”

“This isn’t about control.” But we both knew that was a lie. Everything about our strange relationship was about control—who had it, who wanted it, who was losing it.

“No?” She moved closer, the delicious warmth of her skin making my office feel smaller. “Then what is it about? The bank’s precious reputation? Your need to document every breath before taking action?”

“It’s about keeping you alive.” The words came out rougher than I intended. “About not letting you get yourself killed chasing leads alone.”

“I’ve been working these circles for years,” she countered, bracing her hands on my desk. “I know how to handle myself.”

“You’re going to get yourself hurt—”

“My father trusted procedure,” she said softly. “He believed in the system. In doing things carefully and by the rules.”

I moved around the desk, needing to close the distance between us. “Isabella—”

“Don’t.” She straightened, but didn’t step back. We were too close now, the late hour and shared tension making everything feel charged. “I won’t watch more girls disappear while we build an irrefutable case.”

“I’m trying to protect you,” I said quietly. “To make sure what happened to him doesn’t happen again. I want…I need to keep you safe.”

Her eyes met mine, and I thought I detected something else there. Something that made my cock harden in my slacks before I could push it away. “You want to protect me by following the same procedures that got him killed?” Her voice caught. “All his careful documentation, all his evidence, it didn’t save him. It didn’t save anyone.”

I reached for her before I could stop myself, my hand settling on her shoulder. She tensed but didn’t pull away.

“That’s why we do this differently,” I said calmly. “Together. Smart. So they can’t bury it this time.”

“While more girls disappear.” But some of the fight had left her voice. “While we play it safe behind mahogany desks and expensive suits.”

“You think this is safe?” I gestured at the files spread across my desk with my free hand, not moving the one on her shoulder. “You think investigating this won’t get us both killed if we make one wrong move?”

She looked up at me, and I suddenly realized that we were too close. Close enough to see the shadows under her eyes, the faint freckles across her nose that her usual makeup concealed. Close enough to feel the heat of her body, to catch the quiet tremor in her breathing. Close enough that I’d started to care.

I hadn’t let myself care about anyone else in years, not since Catherine. And for good reason. Catherine O’Conner had been a corporate lawyer at a rival firm, brilliant and ambitious like me. I was fresh out of law school, and stupidly, embarrassingly naïve. For over a year, I’d thought Catherine and I were building something real. I’d bought a ring, planning an elaborate proposal at her favorite restaurant in Paris. Then I learned the truth—I’d followed her one night, planning to surprise her and pick her up after a networking event. But she didn’t go to the office. Instead, I followed her to her firm’s managing partner’s house where I waited, seething in my car. She had finally emerged at dawn, looking thoroughly satisfied.

My soon-to-be fiancée had been fucking the same partner who’d somehow known exactly how to counter every move I’d made in our recent cases.

My investigation revealed she’d been sleeping with him for most of our relationship, feeding him information about my cases between rounds in his bed. Every intimate detail I’d shared, every strategy I’d planned, every vulnerability I’d revealed—all of it had been weaponized against my clients. Against me.

And then she made partner.

It had taken an entire year to rebuild my professional reputation. When I was offered a junior role at the bank, I jumped at it. It hadn’t taken long for them to move me up the corporate ladder.

After Catherine, my relationships became purely physical. My approach to sex turned clinical, like everything else in my life. I chose women carefully, usually visiting executives or lawyers from other firms, women who understood discretion and wanted nothing beyond a night of mutual convenience. High-end hotel rooms booked under business accounts, encounters that ran like well-executed contracts. No small talk, no dinner, no pretense of romance. Just clean, efficient satisfaction followed by polite goodbyes…if even that.

These women suited my needs perfectly. They shared my professional background, understood the value of privacy, and most importantly, never expected more than I was willing to give. Many were married or similarly uninterested in attachments. We operated under unspoken but black and white terms—no personal questions, no morning after, no repeated encounters that might blur the lines between business and pleasure. Most of the time, not even exchanging words. I kept everything close to my chest, even internalizing my own sounds of pleasure as I filled condom after condom, an endless line of forgettable conquests.

Letting nothing slip.

Never again.

Word got around, and I cultivated a reputation for being an excellent, albeit severely detached, lover. Skilled, thorough, but ultimately unpossessable. Women knew exactly what they were getting: one night of precisely controlled passion with a man who wouldn’t even acknowledge them at the next charity gala. It was easier that way—no attachments, no vulnerabilities, no risks.

Cooper joked that I approached dating like hostile takeovers, all strategy and no heart.

It hadn’t always been that way, but for the last few years, it was. I craved nothing but sexual release, and then left as soon as I could.

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