Chapter 4 Rodwa pretends nothing happened when he saw Isabella

Rodwell's POV:

I saw her before she saw me.It was the second day of onboarding when she walked down the corridor-head high, folder in hand, completely unaware that the man behind the glass wall was the same one who'd whispered into her neck and traced the line of her spine just nights ago.

Isabella.The woman from the club. The woman I'd touched without knowing her name. The woman who had disappeared into the night just as I had-two shadows colliding under neon lights, then dissolving like fog in the morning.

But here she was.Real. Professional. Sober-eyed and sharp. She looked like a woman trying to rebuild, and seeing her in my company-under my leadership-hit me like a freight train of guilt.

My first instinct? Pretend.Pretend I didn't know her. Pretend she was just another face in the employee directory. Pretend I hadn't memorized the curve of her body or the sound she made when she came undone in my arms.

I was supposed to be better than that.She passed by the conference room, and for a fleeting second, our eyes locked through the glass.And the look she gave me...It wasn't confusion. It wasn't fear. It was something far more cutting.

Contempt.She looked at me like I was filth. Like I was one more mistake she regretted. One more man who used her pain as a playground.

And maybe she wasn't wrong.I hadn't meant to sleep with her. I hadn't gone out that night looking for a body to fall into. I was grieving, unraveling quietly under the weight of too many losses-an ended marriage, a failed merger, a father I still couldn't forgive. The scotch had been strong, her perfume stronger, and the moment we touched, I wasn't in control anymore.

But I should have been. I should have walked away.Now, here we were. In a setting that demanded structure and boundaries-neither of which existed that night.

I kept my distance.In meetings, I spoke to the room, not to her. I never looked directly at her unless I had to. And when I did meet her eyes, it was like standing under a storm cloud-fury in her gaze, judgment in her silence.

Every glance she threw my way said the same thing:You disgust me.And every time she looked at me like that, my insides churned with something I couldn't quite name.

Regret, yes. Guilt, definitely.But there was something else, too.That night hadn't meant nothing to me. It should have. But it didn't. Because for a few hours, she had seen the man behind the title-the man no one else ever really looked at. And I'd seen her too. Raw. Vulnerable. Fierce in her brokenness.

And now, that connection had become a secret weapon she held against me. A loaded gun in every stare.I couldn't fire her. That would only make things worse-and Sharon would question it. Besides, she hadn't done anything wrong.I had.So I did what cowards do.

I buried myself in work. I avoided unnecessary contact. I kept things clinical and cold.But no matter how much I tried to forget, every time she walked into a room...

I remembered.Not just what we did.But how it felt.And the worst part?I knew I'd remember it for the rest of my life.