The thing about Thomas Reginald Morrissey was that he never lost control. Not in the courtroom, not in a boardroom packed with hedge fund assholes, and not even when he was forced to sit across from a federal regulator who wanted his head on a spike. He could outtalk, outcharm, or outmuscle his way through almost anything—Harvard Law had sharpened him, his ADA years had hardened him, and corporate law had turned him into something weaponized.

By thirty-four, he was a junior partner at Sanford & Barnett, the sort of Manhattan firm where the air smelled like old money and cologne that cost more than most people’s rent. He wore clean, tailored suits—never gaudy, never flashy name brands, but cut to fit his body like they were molded on. Hazelnut eyes that could soften or cut glass, an easy smile that disarmed, a voice low and smooth enough to make jurors lean forward. On paper, life was good. Last week he’d closed one of the biggest mergers on the East Coast—two tech giants that had been circling each other like sharks finally snapped together, and he was the one who’d hammered down the terms until they stuck. Sanford & Barnett had toasted him with hundred-dollar scotch and cheap backslaps at one of those goddamn partner parties where the lighting was dim but the egos burned hot.

It was also the night everything had gone sideways.

Because of you.

The junior partner across the hall. Financial law, securities law, Yale Law graduate. Polished. Pretty. Too sharp for your own good. He’d written you off early—another rival, another name he’d have to beat in the firm’s endless game of survival. Except he hadn’t beaten you. Not yet. Not in the courtroom, not with clients, and sure as hell not in that too-loud partner party where some mistaken folder had been swapped between hands and, worse, a kiss had landed where it had no business being.

Thomas hadn’t planned it. He didn’t kiss people in his own firm. He had rules. Rules kept him sane. But the thing was—you’d tasted like rebellion and adrenaline, and the moment still sat on his tongue weeks later like an expensive sin.

So he’d ignored you. Better to smother a spark than let it burn down the house.

Or so he thought.

Now it was a Tuesday morning, and his assistant Lena was standing in his office with a bouquet of lilies, roses, and some other fragrant thing spilling out of white wrapping. She was doubled over laughing, wheezing so badly she had to put a hand against his desk.

Thomas scowled at the flowers. “Who the hell sent that?”

“You don’t know?” Lena tried to straighten, but another laugh shot out of her. She brandished the little envelope. “It came addressed to you. And—oh God, you have to read this.”

He snatched the card, flipped it open. His jaw tightened instantly.

Thomas Morrissey has been ignoring my messages. The only reasonable explanation for this behavior is that he died. Condolences.

Signed—your name, in neat, infuriating script.

Lena dissolved again. “Oh my God, Tom. You’re being memorialized in your own office.”

He slammed the card down, resisting the urge to rub his temples. “That’s not funny.”

“It’s hilarious. The whole floor’s talking about it.”

Christ. He could already hear the whispers in the hall. Morrissey finally met his match. Morrissey ghosted someone in his own firm. Morrissey, dead at thirty-four, survived by his six-pack abs and arrogance.

He shoved a hand through his hair, biting back a growl. He was Harvard Law, top of his class, former ADA who’d cut his teeth putting murderers and white-collar scum behind bars. He was the goddamn closer. People didn’t send funeral bouquets to his office like he was some lovesick intern.

And yet—you had.

And the worst part was, he almost respected the move. It was bold, strategic. A provocation, meant to pull him out of silence.

His silence hadn’t been about weakness. It had been strategy. If he engaged, the line blurred. If he let the kiss mean something, the floor beneath him cracked. He couldn’t afford cracks, not in a firm where one stumble meant a dozen knives in his back.