Chapter 2: Lovers on the Edge

After I said those words, Nathan Brooks held the wailing infant close and turned away. The baby’s cries bounced off the marble and glass, catching the attention of travelers hustling to their gates.

A man like him—proud, untouchable—chasing me to Union Station was unthinkable. The Nathan Brooks I knew never lowered himself, never showed weakness in public, never risked a headline or a whisper among rivals.

But this wasn’t our first ending. Three years earlier, we’d split before. That time, I was the one sobbing, begging, humiliated as security gently but firmly showed me out of his office.

The day before that breakup, in his penthouse office, on that heavy walnut desk he bragged about—the one he said cost more than my college tuition—he stripped me piece by piece. His hands had been careful, reverent, treating me like something rare and fragile.

I lay back, eyes squeezed shut, the cool wood pressing into my skin. City lights spilled through the floor-to-ceiling windows, a private galaxy blinking just for us.

Nathan leaned in, the scent of whiskey and Tom Ford cologne making my head spin. "Rachel, you know every time you come in here to report on work, I only have one thought in my mind. Which is to fuck you hard on this desk." His breath was hot on my ear, the words both crude and electrifying.