Chapter 46: The Mahogany Desk

Victoria kissed him like a woman who had just survived a shipwreck and found solid ground.

Her hands gripped his shirt and pulled him closer. She tasted like expensive scotch and the metallic tang of adrenaline. Lucas wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her off the floor. He set her on the edge of the heavy mahogany desk. Legal documents scattered across the polished wood but neither of them cared to catch them.

Victoria wrapped her legs around his hips to anchor him. She broke the kiss just long enough to drag her mouth along his jawline.

"You stopped him," Victoria whispered against his skin. "You stopped him."

She was repeating it to make it real. The near miss with a federal indictment had shattered her usual armor. She needed the raw physical friction to burn away the lingering terror of what her trusted lawyer had almost done to her.

Lucas let his System skills activate in the background. The blue overlay of Erogenous Mapping illuminated the frantic pulse points on her neck and the heavy tension coiled in her spine. He knew exactly what she needed. She did not want gentle comfort or reassuring words. She wanted to feel overpowered by someone she trusted so she could drop the burden of command.

He kissed her neck. He bit down gently on the pulse point hammering just below her ear.

Victoria arched her back and gripped his hair. The founder of Vertex Management surrendered her dominance without a single argument. She chased the heat he offered and pressed her hips firmly against him.

"Lucas," she breathed. Her voice was raspy and stripped of all its usual cold authority.

He slipped one hand higher and traced the curve of her hip through her white silk blouse. The heat radiating from her skin was intoxicating. He wanted to push her flat against the desk and clear the remaining folders to the floor. The heavy scent of jasmine filled his lungs and clouded his judgment.

But he knew the reality of their environment.

Nathan Cole was sitting in an office less than fifty feet away. Half the legal department had come in for the Saturday quarter-end push, and the frosted glass walls of the executive floor offered very little true privacy. If someone opened those oak doors right now the scandal would destroy whatever leverage they had left.

Lucas slowly tightened his grip on her waist. He did not push her away. He held her firm and pulled his lips back from her neck.

Victoria chased his mouth for a fraction of a second before realizing he had stopped. She opened her dark eyes. They were wide and heavy with a raw desire she rarely let anyone see.

"We are in your office," Lucas murmured. He kept his hands resting on her thighs to maintain the connection. "And the man who tried to frame you is sitting down the hall."

Victoria stared at him. Her chest rose and fell in rapid uneven waves. The primal urge to lose herself in the moment fought a brief war against her legendary self-control.

She closed her eyes and let out a long trembling exhale.

She rested her forehead against his shoulder. Her hands slowly relaxed their death grip on his shirt. She stayed there for a long moment while her breathing returned to a steady rhythm. She was grounding herself in his calm presence.

"You are right," Victoria whispered. She lifted her head and met his gaze. "He is right outside."

Lucas took a half step back to give her space. He reached out and smoothed the wrinkled fabric of her white silk blouse. It was an intimate and protective gesture. Victoria watched his hands with a soft expression that looked foreign on her sharp features.

She slid off the mahogany desk and straightened her pencil skirt. The physical distance allowed her corporate persona to slide back into place. The vulnerable woman was tucked away again but the way she looked at him had permanently changed.

"What is our next move?" Victoria asked. She was no longer giving him orders. She was asking for his strategy.

"We act like nothing happened," Lucas said. He stepped over to the wet bar and poured her a fresh glass of water. He handed it to her. "You hold onto the retainer agreement. You tell Cole you are reviewing the methodology over the weekend. We give Morgan the time she needs to get the physical formation documents from Delaware."

Victoria took a sip of the water. Her hand was steady again. "Once Morgan has the wet-ink signature we hand the file to the federal authorities."

"Yes," Lucas agreed. "We let the government tear his life apart. But until that paper arrives we have to keep him comfortable. He needs to think his exit strategy is still a secret."

Victoria set the glass down. She walked over and picked up her silver pen from the desk. She looked at the lethal instrument she had almost used to sign her own ruin.

"I can play the part," Victoria said softly. She turned to look at him. "But I do not like waiting. I want this finished."

"It will be," Lucas promised.

"Go back to her," Victoria instructed. Her gaze flickered to the charcoal shirt he wore. "You need to maintain your cover with Camilla. If you disappear for too long she will start asking questions we cannot answer right now."

Lucas nodded. He turned and walked toward the heavy oak doors.

He stepped out into the pristine corporate corridor and maintained a steady pace toward the private elevators. He did not look at the legal department as he passed the glass walls. He knew Cole was in there believing he was a genius who had outsmarted a massive empire.

The elevator doors closed and Lucas let out a quiet breath.

He pulled his cracked smartphone from his pocket. He needed to coordinate the timeline with Morgan. The auditor was the only person who could secure the final nail in Cole’s coffin.

He had a text message waiting for him on his secure messaging app.

It was from Morgan.

The message did not contain a timeline or a confirmation of her progress. It was a single line of text that made the blood freeze in his veins.

Someone just placed a rush order to recall the Northshore original from the state registry. It wasn’t me. Cole knows we are looking.

Lucas stared at the glowing screen. The careful strategy he had just built with Victoria was already dead. Cole was not sitting comfortably in his office. The lawyer had realized the trap was compromised and he was moving to burn the evidence before they could touch it.

A red System notification flashed in the empty elevator cabin.

[Critical Mission Failure Imminent!]

[The target is initiating a scorched earth protocol.]

[Time remaining until evidence destruction: Unknown.]

Lucas shoved the phone back into his pocket. He had to stop the original document from disappearing into the void and he had no idea how to intercept a state courier in Delaware while standing in a high-rise elevator.