Chapter 10 - The CEO's Office
The black Maybach pulled up to the private executive entrance behind the Crestmont Global tower on Wilshire Boulevard.
It was five-thirty in the afternoon.
The sky over Los Angeles was turning a brilliant, burning shade of rose and gold as the sun dipped toward the Pacific Ocean.
Adrian held the car door open for Emily as she stepped out onto the private concrete plaza. Clara stood by the private glass elevator, holding the door open with a quiet, respectful smile.
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Shaw," Clara said, bowing her head slightly.
Emily looked at Clara, then at the private glass elevator, then at Adrian, who was walking beside her in his six-thousand-dollar suit.
They rode the elevator in silence to the 48th floor.
The doors chimed and slid open, revealing the massive executive suite.
Emily stepped out onto the charcoal carpet. She walked slowly past the walnut reception desk, through the open double oak doors, and stood in the center of the CEO’s office.
The floor-to-ceiling glass wrapped around the room, offering an impossible, breathless view of the entire city stretching out to the shining sea. The massive petrified wood desk sat in the center, clean, bare, and powerful.
Emily walked to the glass wall and looked out at the golden light washing over the skyscrapers.
Behind her, the double oak doors closed softly.
Adrian walked across the dark carpet and stopped two feet behind her. He removed his charcoal suit jacket, tossed it onto the sofa, and loosened his navy silk tie with his right hand.
"I suppose," Emily said softly, her reflection visible in the glass before her, "you don't do much office paperwork."
Adrian let out a quiet, breathless laugh.
"Mostly paperwork," he said, stepping closer until she could feel the heat of his broad shoulders behind her. "Signatures, contracts, board resolutions. It's very boring."
Emily turned around to face him.
"You lied to me," she said.
"I didn't lie," Adrian replied gently. "I told you I did office work. I told you I rented a place in Pasadena—I do, under my personal name, when I want to get away from my family's security detail. And I told you I needed to get out of an arranged family merger."
"Your grandfather's trust board," Emily remembered.
"My uncle Marcus wanted to merge Crestmont with Vance Logistics," Adrian said, his grey eyes darkening. "Julian Vance wanted control of our shipping terminals in Long Beach. My grandfather's trust stipulated that if I wasn't married by my thirty-third birthday, voting control defaulted to Marcus."
"So you needed a wife," Emily whispered.
"I needed a miracle," Adrian corrected her softly. "And then I got jumped outside the courthouse by two of Marcus's private investigators who were trying to steal my personal identification papers to stop me from filing a marriage license."
He reached out, his long fingers gently touching the side of her face. His skin was warm, firm, and steady.
"And a woman with faded canvas shoes and a clean dish towel stopped to help me," Adrian said, his voice dropping into a low, intense whisper. "A woman who had twenty-eight dollars in her bank account and still offered me her last cup of coffee."
Emily looked up into his silver eyes.
"You knew who I was," she said.
"Not at first," Adrian admitted. "Not until you told the clerk your name was Emily Carter. I recognized the name because Julian Vance had been boasting about his upcoming marriage settlement for three weeks. When I realized what your family was doing to you..."
He stopped. His hand moved down to rest on her shoulder, his thumb gently tracing her collarbone.
"I realized," Adrian whispered, "that the only way to save my company was to save you."
Emily took a slow, deep breath.
The fear that had filled her life for six years—the shame, the debt, the threats from Valerie, the memory of the cold hospital room—seemed to dissolve into the warm, golden light flooding through the glass windows.
She looked around the massive, beautiful office.
Then she looked up at her husband.
"So," Emily said, a faint, dangerous smile touching her lips for the first time all day. "What happens now, Mr. Shaw?"
Adrian leaned down, his grey eyes holding hers, his breath warm against her lips.
"Now, Mrs. Shaw," Adrian murmured, "we go home to Pasadena. We order pad thai. And tomorrow, we buy Carter Textiles for one dollar... and give it to you."
May you like
Emily laughed—a real, rich, breathless laugh that echoed through the quiet executive suite.
And as the sun dipped beneath the Pacific Ocean, casting long golden light across the city below, the CEO of Crestmont Global Holdings pulled his wife into his arms and kissed her for the very first time.
