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And now, as I stood in my penthouse, watching the city lights flicker on beneath the darkening sky, I was counting the last few seconds until her promised return.

The elevator chimed softly.

I didn't turn immediately, giving myself a moment to compose my features into the mask I'd perfected over years of high-stakes negotiations.

Calm. Controlled. Revealing nothing of the storm raging beneath the surface.

"Lucas."

Her voice still had the power to send electricity racing down my spine.

I turned, finding her standing at the threshold, a vision in emerald silk that brought out the green of her eyes.

She looked different somehow—more centered, more certain. The week apart had changed her in ways I couldn't immediately categorize.

"Savannah." I moved toward her with measured steps, maintaining a careful distance. "You came back."

"I said I would." Her gaze was direct, unflinching, though I detected a slight tremor in her hands as she set down her purse.

"I keep my promises."

Unlike the lies that had sent her away. The unspoken accusation hung between us, though her tone held no bitterness. Just simple truth.

"Would you like a drink?" I offered, already moving toward the bar, needing something to occupy my hands. "Wine? Scotch?"

"No." She moved farther into the room, following me.

"I want clarity tonight. Not liquid courage."

I nodded, abandoning the pretense, turning to face her fully. "And did you find it? Clarity, during our time apart?"

"I did." She took a deep breath, shoulders squaring slightly.

"I spent the week examining everything—why I'm drawn to you, what I want from this, whether it's worth the complications. Whether it's real or just another self-destructive pattern."

The business executive in me appreciated her methodical approach, the weighing of risks against potential rewards.

The man—the part I rarely acknowledged—felt something dangerously close to fear.

"And your conclusion?" I kept my voice neutral, betraying nothing of the tension coiling inside me.

She moved closer, close enough that I could detect the familiar jasmine scent of her perfume, the one that had haunted me during her absence. "That I want this. Want you. Despite everything."

Relief flooded through me, so powerful it was almost dizzying. I hadn't realized just how tightly I'd been holding myself until that moment, how completely her answer had mattered.

"But," she continued, and my guard immediately rose again, "I need something from you that I'm not sure you can give."

"Name it." The response came instantly, without calculation or strategy—a novelty for a man who measured every word with careful precision.

"Honesty." She reached for me then, one hand coming to rest against my chest, directly over my heart.

"Not just about facts or circumstances. Emotional honesty. I need to know what this means to you, Lucas. Beyond desire. Beyond the challenge. Beyond whatever game we've been playing."

Deflect. Minimize. Redirect.

The instincts honed through decades of business negotiations activated automatically. Give her enough to satisfy without revealing the true depth of my vulnerability. A practiced strategy that had never failed me.

Yet as I looked into those green eyes, something unexpected happened. A memory surfaced—sharp, sudden, painful in its clarity.