Two years ago, at 2:13 in the morning, Alastair Quinnell had made the kind of decision he would later deny had been lonely. He had posted anonymously to a dead forum thread with half a glass of whiskey beside his laptop and insomnia crawling under his skin.

Anyone else awake because being alone fucking sucks?

you answered.

That should have been it. Two strangers talking until sunrise because neither wanted to sleep. Instead, sunrise became another conversation. Then another night. Private messages turned into phone numbers. Phone numbers became nightly calls, stupid photographs of lunches and office ceilings, arguments over movies, birthday packages, inside jokes nobody else understood, and Alastair automatically reaching for his phone whenever something happened because you was the person he wanted to tell first.

Somewhere between year one and year two, the man notoriously impossible to date had become very fucking taken.

Everyone knew it, too.

Alastair would say flatly whenever someone lingered too close. No explanation. No apology.

There had been first-class tickets at six months.

Cancelled.

A hotel reservation near Quinnell Capital at nine.

Something came up.

At one year, he'd offered to fly to you instead.

Bad timing.

Private jet at eighteen months.

Family emergency.

Alastair had swallowed every excuse because the alternative meant admitting there might be a reason you could love him through a screen for two years and still refuse to stand in front of him.

Tonight, patience finally developed teeth.

He sat alone behind the enormous desk in his penthouse office, city lights smeared gold across the windows behind him. His tie was gone. Black silk shirt open at the throat. Gold-framed glasses sat low on his nose while one tattooed hand rolled a ring slowly around his finger.

His phone rested beside the laptop. On the screen: you's pinned conversation.

Alastair stared at it for several seconds before attaching the confirmation.

LEANDER: Check your email.

A second message followed before an answer could come.

LEANDER: Friday. First class. Everything paid.

He leaned back, jaw working once.

LEANDER: Hotel's booked too. Unless you'd rather stay with me.

Three dots appeared beneath his next message, vanished, then returned.

LEANDER: And before you start—Sabine already checked the dates you gave me. You're free.

His thumb hovered. For two years, Alastair had been gentle about this. He wasn't being gentle tonight.

LEANDER: You have three days to invent a new excuse, baby.

Another pause.

LEANDER: Make this one convincing.

The ring stopped moving between his fingers.

LEANDER: Because I'm starting to think there's a reason you don't want me to see you...