In which professionalism frays, and the walls between rivals begin to crack.
Max
Investor meetings weren't supposed to feel like battlegrounds.
And yet, across the conference room table, Aurelia sat in a razor-cut red suit like she'd dressed for war—and Max felt herself sweat under her blazer for the third time that morning.
They had spent three weeks pretending Paris hadn't happened.
Three weeks of curated distance. Of polished smiles and perfectly neutral body language during joint press appearances. Of collaboration meetings conducted like tactical briefings, where every look, every gesture was scrutinized, contained, and stripped of anything that might suggest intimacy.
Three weeks of Max telling herself that what happened in Paris was temporary. That the heat and vulnerability of that hotel suite could be boxed up and buried beneath strategy decks and quarterly projections.
Then Aurelia had walked into this morning's meeting with a different presentation deck. A different plan. A different fire in her eyes.
Max had prepared Sterling Global's rollout proposal with surgical precision. It accounted for vendor compliance protocols, global logistics, and projected supply chain risks. It was airtight.
Aurelia, apparently, preferred dynamite.
"You're proposing we fast-track implementation before confirming long-term vendor compliance?" Max asked, her voice a calm blade, honed and practiced, though her pulse pounded in her throat.
Aurelia didn't even flinch. "I'm proposing we stop dragging our heels because someone's afraid of innovation."
The air shifted.
A subtle tension wound through the room like static before a lightning strike. Several investors leaned forward, interest piqued by the friction—everyone loved a bit of spectacle, even in a boardroom.
Max's spine straightened like steel. "Caution isn't fear."
Aurelia turned a page in her presentation with pointed calm. "No. But fear does dress up well in corporate language."
The blow landed deep.
Not just professional—it was personal. An echo of late-night honesty in a Parisian bed, when Max had admitted how tightly she clung to structure. To control. To legacy. Now Aurelia was throwing it back at her in full view of Sterling's top stakeholders.
Max kept her expression unreadable, even as her hands tensed beneath the polished walnut table.
The rest of the meeting passed in a blur of formalities—questions, charts, economic forecasts. But Max only half-heard them. Her brain was running too fast, her vision too narrow. Every word Aurelia spoke felt like a prod, a challenge, a dare.
She knew exactly what she was doing. And she was doing it beautifully.
When the meeting finally concluded, Max didn't linger. She didn't wait for Lani, didn't stop for handshakes or reassurances or post-mortem debriefs. She gathered her materials like weapons and left, high heels striking the marble floor in rapid-fire punctuation.
She needed air.
She needed space.
She needed out.
The elevator bank was blissfully empty when she reached it. Max hit the call button with unnecessary force and watched the floor numbers descend with a silent fury she couldn't afford to show.
The doors opened.
She stepped inside.
Then—heels. Clicks behind her.
She didn't have to turn.
She knew.
The scent of jasmine. The heat of presence. The quiet confidence that clung to Aurelia like static electricity.
Of course.
Because nothing in her life could be simple anymore.
The doors slid shut.
Seventeen floors to the lobby.
Seventeen floors with the one person who made her feel like she was both unraveling and being remade from the inside out.
Max stared at the floor numbers. Kept her spine straight. Her hands at her sides. Her thoughts locked in a vault. She would not give Aurelia the satisfaction of—
"Seventeenth floor," Aurelia said softly, voice laced with amusement. "Going down."
The words were casual. Almost innocent.
Except they weren't. They never were, not from her.
Max said nothing.
Three weeks of control. Of avoidance. Of pretending.
All of it balancing on the edge of a knife now, suspended in this sterile metal box moving at exactly 3.5 meters per second toward the inevitable.
---
- Aurelia -
Seventeen floors.
That's all the time she had. All the time she needed.
She could feel Max beside her—tense, unreadable, coiled like a spring. Aurelia said nothing at first. She didn't need to. The energy in the elevator was thick enough to taste.
Three weeks since Paris.
Three weeks of cool nods, scripted interactions, and perfect professional restraint. Aurelia had played her part, just like Max had. But underneath, she'd been watching. Waiting.
Waiting for a crack in the façade.
Today, she'd made one.
"You always get this mad when I'm right?" she asked lightly, voice a silken prod.
And that was it.
Max reached forward and hit the emergency stop.
The elevator shuddered to a halt. The hum of movement ceased. Silence fell.
Aurelia turned slowly.
Max faced her now—expression tight, eyes burning.
"Dramatic," Aurelia murmured, eyebrow arched.
"You undermined me in front of the entire room," Max said, low and sharp, her voice carrying the weight of far more than one meeting.
"I saved you from pitching something outdated," Aurelia said without flinching.
"I don't need you to save me."
"Then stop acting like you hate it when I do."
Silence.
Tense, electrified silence.
Max took a step forward.
Aurelia didn't move.
"You make everything harder than it needs to be," Max said, each word clipped with frustration.
"And you make everything colder than it should be," Aurelia replied, quieter now. The words landed soft—but sharp.
Another step.
Aurelia's back brushed against the cool steel wall of the elevator. She stayed still.
Max braced one hand against the metal beside her head, leaning in—not quite touching, not quite pulling away. A breath's distance between them.
Aurelia could feel the heat of her. The tension. The conflict just beneath the skin.
Max's expression was carved from restraint. From fire. From something she couldn't name but couldn't hold back anymore.
"If you're going to kiss me again," Aurelia whispered, voice low, "just do it."
---
- Max -
She didn't move.
Didn't blink.
Just grabbed her.
Max's mouth crashed into Aurelia's with the force of three weeks' worth of restraint detonating all at once. Gone was the Sterling control, the curated poise, the cold precision she wore like armor in every room. In its place—fire. Need. Desperation wrapped in silk and steel.
Aurelia moaned softly, her hands instantly finding Max's shoulders, then her hair, tugging her closer. Their lips parted and collided again, urgent and hungry. No hesitation now. No layers left to peel back. Just skin and truth and heat.
Max pressed forward, her thigh slipping between Aurelia's with a deliberateness that left no room for misunderstanding. Aurelia gasped, fingers tightening in Max's collar as she arched into the contact, helpless and hungry and already lost.
The elevator was still, but the world spun.
"This is insane," Aurelia breathed against Max's lips, voice wrecked with want.
"Then stop me," Max murmured, her mouth brushing along Aurelia's jaw, lower, tasting the hollow of her throat.
Aurelia didn't stop her.
Didn't want to.
She pulled Max closer instead, lips seeking, hands desperate, silk blouse crushed between their bodies. Max's hand slid under it, fingers grazing Aurelia's skin—familiar territory, rediscovered with new urgency. Aurelia responded in kind, pulling at the perfectly tucked hem of Max's shirt until her fingers found warm skin and the edge of lace beneath.
Max growled softly against her ear, and the sound nearly undid Aurelia completely.
The emergency stop had bought them minutes. Not enough, not nearly—but they didn't care. Couldn't care.
Max's kiss deepened, turned sharp and consuming, like she could burn away everything they'd been holding back if she just kissed hard enough. Her hands roamed with purpose, not tentative now but claiming. Aurelia matched her, hips shifting, lips parting, their bodies speaking truths they couldn't yet say aloud.
"I thought we were pretending Paris never happened," Aurelia gasped, her head tipping back as Max kissed a path beneath her jaw.
"I tried," Max said against her skin. "I can't."
That was the moment.
Not the kiss. Not the touch.
But the confession.
Raw and unfiltered, falling between them with more weight than anything else said that day.
Aurelia kissed her again—harder, slower, her own mask cracking, shattering. This wasn't about revenge or games or power. This was something else. Something deep. Dangerous. Real.
They were past the point of containment now.
And still they kissed.
Until—
The elevator phone buzzed, a flat, mechanical reminder that reality still existed beyond the charged air between them.
Security.
Protocol.
The real world.
Max's head dropped against Aurelia's shoulder. "Damn it."
Aurelia, dazed but smiling, reached up and fixed a button on Max's shirt. "You started it."
Max smirked—barely. "You baited me."
"That's not a denial."
Silence again. But different now.
Softer.
Max reached for the panel, disengaged the stop. The elevator hummed back to life.
But she didn't step away.
Her hand remained on Aurelia's hip, thumb brushing slow circles through silk as if her body refused to forget the heat of what just happened.
They descended in quiet.
Not awkward.
Not ashamed.
But changed.
The elevator doors opened on the executive floor.
Max hesitated.
She looked at Aurelia—really looked—and something in her chest ached. For how badly she wanted this. For how impossible it felt.
She stepped out, suit pristine again, expression unreadable to anyone who didn't know her well enough to see the cracks.
Aurelia continued down to the lobby.
Vivien was waiting.
Her raised eyebrow said everything.
"What floor were you stuck on?" she asked as Aurelia approached, dry but knowing.
Aurelia didn't answer.
But she smiled all the way to the car.
---
- Max-
Her office felt colder than usual.
The city stretched below her window in muted grays and golds, but Max couldn't focus on the skyline. Not with the heat of Aurelia's mouth still clinging to her lips. Not with the weight of what had just happened lodged in her chest like a stone dropped in water, rippling outward.
She had spent three weeks trying to pretend.
To compartmentalize. Rationalize. Control.
All of it undone in seventeen floors.
She didn't regret it.
But she didn't know what to do with it, either.
Her phone buzzed.
Lani—probably questions about the investor reactions. About the meeting's fallout. About what the board would want next.
She didn't check it.
Instead, she stood there, one hand on the glass, eyes unfocused, heart still racing.
Her phone buzzed again.
This time she looked.
Aurelia:My place. 9PM. Unless you're still mad.
Max stared at the screen.
She should be.
But she wasn't.
She typed without hesitation.
Max:I'll be there.
And she knew, as she hit send, that something fundamental had shifted.
No more pretending. No more pretending this was containable. Manageable. Temporary.
Whatever this was between them—it had ignited.
And she couldn't look away from the fire.
---
- Aurelia -
"You look…" Vivien started as they rode the elevator up to Kaiser HQ, "...different."
Aurelia adjusted her sunglasses.
"Like you just rewrote the ending of a boardroom drama with your lipstick," Vivien added, not bothering to hide the smirk.
Aurelia gave her a sidelong glance. "The investor meeting went well."
"You mean the one where you publicly detonated Max Sterling's logistics plan in front of her entire board?"
"I presented strategic alternatives."
"You pressed a detonator, walked away in heels, and got stuck in an elevator with the woman you've been pretending not to want to kiss for three weeks."
Aurelia didn't respond.
Didn't have to.
Vivien saw everything.
Inside her office, behind closed doors, Aurelia finally peeled off the sunglasses and set them on her desk with care.
Vivien sat across from her, arms folded, one eyebrow raised.
"You know this thing with Max isn't going to stay quiet forever," she said gently.
"I know."
"She's Sterling. You're Kaiser. There are consequences."
"I know," Aurelia said again. "But today—it wasn't a game."
Vivien nodded. "That's what worries me."
And then she left, leaving Aurelia alone in her glass-walled office, the skyline behind her, and Max's hands still lingering like a phantom on her skin.
She turned to her computer, pulled up her emails, tried to return to the world of products and pitches and partnerships.
But beneath it all, a countdown had begun.
9PM. Max. Her place.
Something real.
And real was always more dangerous than strategy.