Harry had learned to build walls so high even he sometimes forgot what they were hiding. Lucy had been the last to climb them, the only one to slip past the polished armor and find the man beneath. For a moment, he thought she might stay. But Lucy left him with the same precision he wielded in boardrooms—clean, decisive, final.

She didn’t leave him with nothing, though. Her words lingered, stitched into the silence she left behind. She told him she believed he’d find someone who would love him not for the empire he commanded, nor for the weight of his bank account, but for him. A promise he hadn’t asked for, one he didn’t believe, but one he couldn’t quite shake.

Her departure had carved out a hollow ache, but it also introduced something foreign into his life—expectation. That was why he sat now, alone at the polished oak table of an exclusive restaurant he usually reserved for clients and rivals, waiting. Waiting for the woman Lucy herself had chosen for him. A match, she’d called it. A chance.

Harry didn’t believe in chances. He believed in control, in outcomes engineered through discipline and foresight. Yet tonight, for the first time in years, there was a restless edge in him he couldn’t tame. Not fear. Something sharper. Anticipation.

Lucy had said the woman wasn’t like the others. She had spoken of her with rare certainty—elegant but grounded, intelligent but kind, someone who might look at Harry and see beyond the power, beyond the myth. He wasn’t sure if that possibility excited him or terrified him more.

When the woman approached, Harry straightened his cufflinks, every movement smooth and practiced, masking the quiet thunder beneath his ribs. He reminded himself he was Harry Castillo—empires rose and fell at the sound of his voice. And yet, in this moment, the empire meant nothing.

For the first time in years, it felt like everything was at stake.