Chapter 24

The city buzzed below while Kyl and I stood locked in silence, tension pressing into the spaces between our words, our breathing structured as if that will ease the palpable tension in the air.

My laptop sat open, untouched, the cursor blinking like it was impatient for me to say something I couldn't name.

He dropped another red-marked draft of my memoir pages on my desk without ceremony. "I changed a few things."

I didn't touch the papers. "Define 'a few.'"

Kyl didn't flinch. "The tone needed adjusting."

My pulse ticked in my throat. I picked up the first page and scanned through, entire paragraphs gone, sentences rewritten to be smoother, Less raw, Less me.

"You edited my voice out of this," I said, barely above a whisper.

He folded his arms. "I refined it."

"No. You controlled it." somehow I knew it will come to this.

That got his attention. He straightened, his expression hardening. "This is about the brand. Our brand. Every word reflects on.."

"On you," I cut in. "Let's not pretend this is about anyone but you."

His jaw tensed. "Ivana—"

"No," I snapped. "You promised full creative control but now you're canceling my meetings, demanding to read every page before I send it, rewriting my words" I pushed the pages away. "Are you going to start choosing what I wear to work too?"

His eyes flared, a flash of heat and something else I couldn't name. "Don't be dramatic."

"I'm being honest."

Silence bloomed between us again, dense and throbbing.

"You said you wanted to help me grow as a writer," I continued, softer now, but still very angry, "Not mold me into your mouthpiece."

He stepped closer to me, the air tightening with his presence. "And I meant it."

"Then allow me write in my own voice"

"You don't see it," he said, voice low, almost disappointed "There are people watching, Waiting for you to fail, for me to fall."

"This isn't about your empire," I hissed. "This is about me not letting you pull strings between my thighs and call it mentorship."

His nostrils flared. His eyes, always so carefully blank, now crackled with suppressed fury. "You think I don't respect you?"

I held my ground. "I think you're afraid of what happens when I stop needing you."

That one landed.

His mouth opened and closed with no words coming out.

I could see the tension ripple down his spine, his breath was shallow, his hands clenched at his sides. He turned away from me for a moment, walking toward the massive window that made him look like a god on his mountaintop throne.

"Kyl," I said, quieter now. "What are we doing?"

He didn't answer immediately.

When he did, his voice was tight and stripped bare. "I'm trying not to lose you."

My throat tightened and I gulped, the vulnerability in that confession cracked something in me but it didn't erase the anger.

"Then stop trying to own me."

He turned back, eyes burning. "I don't want to own you."

"You're acting like you do."

He crossed the space between us in three long strides. "I want to keep you close to me Ivana, and Safe."

"I'm not fragile."

He reached out, brushing a knuckle over my cheek, and I hated how my body still leaned into it. "No, you're fire. And fire spreads when you don't cage it."

That was the problem, wasn't it? He loved the flame but feared the burn.

And I was burning too brightly to dim for him anymore.

I pulled back. "Let me do my job."

He didn't stop me. Not physically. But his stare followed me all the way to the door.

"You said you'd stay close," he said as I paused with my hand on the handle.

I turned just enough to meet his eyes.

"And I will but not if close means silent."

Then I walked out the door leaving him with the words he couldn't control.

---

THE NEXT DAY

He didn't speak to me the entire morning.

We worked in parallel silence, his jaw clenched, my shoulders stiff, the air between us thin and cold. He sent edits over Slack now, as if physical distance might soften the edge of his possession.

But the comments were still there:

"This scene feels weak, rewrite to show she's his, not just tempted."

"Tone down the independence angle. It distracts."

I saw all his responses and it infuriated me.

By lunch, I snapped.

I marched into his office, shutting the door behind me. "You don't get to rewrite me."

He looked up, eyes bloodshot. "You came in without knocking."

"I don't care," I said. "You're gaslighting me with redlines."

His mouth twitched into something halfway between a smirk and a scowl. "That's dramatic."

"Is it?" I held up the latest draft. "Because you're cutting every scene where the character doesn't worship you."

He stood, slowly, rounding his desk like a lion waking from a nap. "You're angry. But you're turned on, too."

I flinched. "You think that excuses everything?"

He stopped inches away, close enough that I could smell the espresso on his breath and the faint trace of my perfume lingering on his collar.

"No. But I think you're scared of what you're writing."

"I'm scared of what I'm losing."

"And what's that?"

"Myself."

That silenced him.

For a long time, we stood there, our breathing shallow, our gazes locked. Heat pulsed through the anger, and underneath it, something much more dangerous: longing.

Not lust. Not just that.

It was recognition.

He raised a hand, slow and deliberate, and placed it over mine. "Then let's write it together."

I looked down at his fingers curled over mine, that perfect contradiction of strength and vulnerability. And I said the hardest thing I'd ever said to him.

"No. I need to write it alone."

His hand dropped.

He nodded once. "Then make it hurt."

I smiled, just a little. "It already does."