HER HEART, HIS EMPIRE : A Billionaire's Lie. A Woman's Truth.

on you like silence in a room too big to fill. The jetlag gnawed at her temples, but she refused

of it felt lik

hrow. Glass towers and old cathedrals blended together in a jagged skyline. She barely look

r that night, he hadn't c

******

nce room on the 38th floor of Ford HQ, star

re you w

or an answer. Someone had asked about vendor c

"Let's circle back to that

. But the ten

felt his distractio

new they we

wonderi

't he st

her the truth whe

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ructured blazers, high collars, red lipstick sharper than her words. The Ford Europe team

was eve

efings. At the din

he made it look lik

was in

e on the the third night, "do you ev

nly to people who des

, I think I'm falling

ul. Some of t

in. "So

, she did

e read the last text Alex had sent and

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at an old photograph of his grandfather beside Henry Ford II. A legac

, is he?" his father

y. "She deserves

oured a drink. "Then

never fo

have done something real. That

r didn't

knew what h

ow if he was brav

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don, dressed in black velvet. She looked like a queen, elegant and powerful but sh

at her, as if she were t

eyes and whis

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orld charm and cutting edge design, exactly the image Rothschild wanted to project.

ed her part

the EV initiative's projected impact across Western Europe. E

t like she was watching her

nd her again, wine in hand. "They'r

ll of wine and fla

lly about business, Serena? Or ar

answer. Did

he's not coming. If h

t the edge of the crowd wearing a dark

and got up surprised as her

wed her gaze

ell is he d

lready moving

*****

alcove beneath the s

first as she hug

whispered stil

d, Sleepless but

had

he slapped

echoed o

ou'd call,"

kno

You made me trust you.

know wha

. "You could've said anyth

down. "I w

sed. "O

ven had the chance to tel

een them was ta

ow," she

bout you. I came here because I couldn't stay away. Because

blinked

like you're still

idn't

t

truth still

toni

this is. Or where we go from here. Bu

fragile gravity that pulled them into the same orbit once more. They walked

a stopped. The city glowed acros

feels good have to come wi

n't, we'd never kn

s like something someone trying

e I'm just trying not to lose the only

ithout thinking, he shrugged off his ja

m. "I don't know

her d

The distance that had stretched oceans

till so mu