Chapter 5 Ethan

The club smelled like smoke, desperation, and cologne too expensive for men who needed a place like this to feel powerful. I hated it the second I stepped in.

"Gentlemen's choice," they called it. There was nothing gentlemanly about watching half-naked women pretend they were enjoying the gaze of strangers. I hadn't come here for pleasure. I came because Roman insisted.

If you want the board to listen, Ethan, you need them on your side. Meet them where they are.

And apparently, "where they are" was a high-end strip club buried in New Haven's mess.

I leaned back in the leather booth, nursing a drink I didn't want, drowning out the bass thumping from below. My gaze stayed above their heads-until she stepped into the spotlight.

Layla Greene.

I didn't know her name then. Just the shape of her, the slowness of her steps, the way she looked like she didn't belong there but owned the room anyway. Her body swayed, deliberate and sensual, but her eyes... her eyes didn't dance. They were still. Watchful. Tired.

She was stunning, yes. But not in the way men usually meant when they used the word. She had that quiet sort of beauty that felt accidental. As if she had no idea the power she carried, like it was an afterthought. Something unclaimed.

I watched her longer than I should have. Raised my glass just once, when she looked my way. Then I turned my head like I wasn't affected, like I hadn't just made a decision I didn't understand.

When the call from Roman came in, I barely heard him over the noise. Something about board votes, about legal prep, about Lucian-our older brother-pulling another PR stunt to grab headlines.

I hung up and walked out of the club without a word.

I made a single call to Derek and two hours later, I had her name.

Four hours after that, I had her file.

Three debts. Hospital bills stacking up. No legal representation. No fallback plan. I'd seen people in worse positions, but something about her story made me hesitate. Made me angry.

I told myself it was just business.

She was leverage-nothing more. A temporary solution to a very permanent problem: Thomas getting his hands on the company before me.

I had to appear stable. Settled. Human. I needed to present a clean, packaged version of myself to the board. A wife-even a fake one-would do the trick. But not just any woman. She had to look like someone worth betting on. Someone smart, strong, unlikely to fold under pressure.

Layla fit the bill.

Almost too well.

Which made her dangerous.

I had her followed for a week -not out of cruelty, but necessity. I needed to know where she went, who she trusted, if she could be compromised.

She didn't have friends. Didn't take calls. Didn't trust easily.

But that day at the care center-that's when it clicked. She wasn't just fighting for herself. She was fighting for someone else. An older man, frail, unresponsive. Her father.

She sat by his bed like it was a ritual. Whispered things he likely couldn't hear. Stared at nothing for twenty minutes straight like her entire soul was unraveling.

She didn't cry.

She just... endured.

I told myself again: She's a risk.

Too quiet. Too inward. Too unpredictable.

I should've found someone else. Someone easier to control. But every time I sat down with another candidate-some handpicked, vetted woman in a suit-I saw her face instead.

The way she stood in front of me at the penthouse-half-angry, half-exhausted-like she already knew the world would chew her up and do it slowly.

She reminded me of myself. And that scared the hell out of me.

On a Sunday evening my phone vibrated on the table.

A message from Roman.

"Board meeting pushed. Lucian is prepping an announcement. Brace."

I clenched my jaw. I knew my brother. I knew how far he'd go to take everything from me. Everything he thinks I want, he'll reach out for. It's been like that for years.

I thought I was ahead of him. He had reasons to want to take this From me, I'll even say he had the right reasons. But to bad doing the right thing didn't get me here.

Maybe he had already played his card.

And maybe mine was standing outside a hospital room, trying not to fall apart.

I looked out the window of my office, the city bleeding orange and gold beneath the dusk sky.

For a moment, I wondered what it'd be like if I just let Thomas have it. But that's just a thought. I don't back down. And especially not from that bastard.

That reminded me of Layla. The way she spewed the word " bastard" at me. No one has ever deared. Not in decades at least.

If she knows what she'd be getting into, even if it's just for some months. She'd head for the hills.

But Layla Greene wasn't ready to hear the truth.

And I wasn't going to give her that much of me. Not now, not ever.