Chapter 4 Collide

Ava's heels struck the floor like warning bells as she walked away from Grayson's office, every step harder than the last. Her mind raced, spinning through the night they'd shared, the revelation of his name, his title, and the tightly contained storm behind his steady eyes. Grayson Blackwood. Not just her boss, he was the boss.

The man whose touch still lingered on her skin was now the man who controlled the trajectory of her career.

She made it back to her desk and sank into her chair, back straight, hands clenched in her lap as her screen came to life. Her inbox was already drowning in messages, but the words blurred together.

**You left without saying goodbye.**

His voice echoed in her skull like an aftershock, like he hadn't expected her to disappear into the morning like smoke.

She had wanted control, to hold the upper hand, even in fleeing. But now she felt nothing close to powerful. Instead, she felt like a secret that could detonate at any moment.

Lila leaned in over the divider. "So... wanna tell me why our new CEO just requested you by name? Because I'm trying to read between the lines here and my drama senses are tingling."

Ava forced a smile. "He just wanted to go over some performance stats. Nothing big."

Lila raised a skeptical brow. "Sure. Stats. The man looked at you like you were the PowerPoint presentation, and he forgot how to breathe."

Ava turned back to her monitor. "It's nothing. Really."

Hearing this, Lila didn't press as she knew Ava well enough to let her retreat-at least for now.

By noon, Ava still hadn't been able to eat as she sat in a boardroom during a brand strategy meeting, nodding along while senior executives pitched rebranding slogans and target market shifts, but her mind remained a battlefield.

Grayson was across the hall in the corner office.

The office that had belonged to Martin Caldwell, the now-retired CEO who'd built Blackwood Enterprises from the ground up. Whispers said the board had been looking for a visionary, someone more ruthless, someone with sharp instincts and a global eye.

Hence, they had found Grayson Blackwood.

No one knew where he'd come from exactly-only that his acquisitions were brutal, efficient, and always successful. He didn't play politics. He won it.

Which left Ava in dangerous territory and not just professionally, but emotionally.

Meanwhile, she left the meeting early under the guise of preparing financial projections and returned back at her desk as she tried focusing on her spreadsheets, but her body betrayed her, and her jaw clenched, her heart skittish, breath catching every time someone in a tailored suit walked past.

The knock came around 3 p.m., and she looked up, as her breath was already gone.

"Ms. Monroe," his voice called softly from the threshold, cool and even. "My office. Now."

Eyes followed her as she rose, and her nerves buzzed with every step down the glass corridor. Once inside, he didn't offer her a seat; he just closed the door and walked to the window as Manhattan sprawled endlessly behind him.

"I want to make this very clear," he began, still facing away from her. "What happened between us... will remain between us. But it cannot affect your role here. Your performance will stand on its own merit."

Ava crossed her arms. "I've always let it."

He turned, his gaze locking with hers. "I know. That's why I don't want you to feel threatened or-"

"Threatened?" she cut in, voice sharp. "I slept with a stranger to forget being passed over for a promotion. And then that stranger walked into my life as the man who could fire me. Excuse me if I'm struggling to see the 'unthreatening' angle here."

His jaw flexed. "That wasn't what I meant."

"Then say what you mean."

He stepped closer, not touching, but close enough to shift the air. "What I mean is, I haven't forgotten. Any of it. I know what you taste like when you're angry, and how your mouth curves when you lie. I know you hide your grief behind sarcasm and how your shoulders lock when you're pretending not to care."

Silence.

Then he added, his voice turned lower, "And I know I shouldn't want to know more."

Ava swallowed hard. "But you do."

His eyes didn't move. "Yes."

She felt the words in her gut like heat spreading, dangerous and unwelcome.

"You said we were going to pretend it never happened," she whispered.

"I did," he replied. "And I meant it. But pretending and forgetting are not the same thing."

The tension surged between them...old enough to have history, and new enough to still burn. Her body still remembered his hands while her heart hadn't decided what to do with the weight of knowing him now.

And after a moment, he stepped back and gestured to a folder on the table.

"You're leading the pitch for the Halcyon merger," he said, just like that. No softness now. All CEO. "The board will expect a recommendation by Friday. You've got three days."

Ava stared. "That's a C-level client. That's... huge."

He gave a single nod. "You've been overlooked long enough. Consider this your shot."

Her throat dried as she had fought so long for a chance like this, and now it came on the heels of a mistake she couldn't undo.

"Why me?" she asked softly.

"Because I trust your mind," Grayson said. "Even if I can't afford to trust anything else."

And with that, the meeting was over.

As she walked out of his office, she felt like a different woman than the one who had stepped in as she knew this wasn't over because power had shifted, and it wasn't just his anymore. It was hers too.

And for the first time since Friday, Ava didn't feel like the woman who had been passed over. She felt like someone who could win.

But behind her spine, tingling like a storm warning, was the knowledge that the line between power and desire was paper-thin-and she'd already crossed it.