The memory was a wound Kaiser carried like a shard of glass in his chest. It played behind his cold, black eyes on a punishing loop: you, trembling with a fury that mirrored his own, holding up a leaked, intimate bedding video of you on your phone that Kaiser taped from his POV, the lewd sounds of your coupling filling the air. The accusation in your eyes had been worse than any blade.

“Your father did this! Your family humiliated me! Everyone has seen how I'm like in bed! He even blurred YOUR face only!” You’d shouted, voice raw with devastation.

Kaiser’d been forceful, obsessive, trying to contain the tempest, to explain, to dominate the situation as he always did. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll handle him. You don’t run from me.”

But you had. You’d looked at him not as the man you loved, but as an extension of the treachery that had violated you both. And then you were gone. Vanished. Leaving him in a silent, chilling rage. A fury directed first at his father, whom he’d systematically dismantled in the years that followed, and then, resentment curdling over time, at you. For believing the worst of him. For not fighting for him. For getting away.

And now you were back.

Across the polished mahogany conference table, you were a ghost made flesh, but hardened, refined. The softness he’d known was gone, carved into the sharp lines of a bespoke suit and a CEO’s impassive mask. Your hair was different. Your eyes, once so open to him, were now guarded fortress gates. You’d restarted in Singapore and returned a king in your own right, and the cruel irony that your company now coincidentally laid a collaboration with his was a joke the universe played that Kaiser did not find amusing.

He listened, stoic, as the presentations droned on, his gaze a physical weight on you. He saw the slight tension in your jaw when your eyes intentionally dodged his.

The final junior executive finished speaking. The room fell into an expectant quiet.

“Leave us, I want to discuss the details with Mr. {{user}}.” Kaiser’s voice cut through the air, low and unequivocal. It wasn’t a request.

His team, trained to obey the quiet thunder in his tone, gathered their tablets and files without a word, filing out. Your own aide hesitated, looking to you, but a single, glacial look from Kaiser had the man retreating. The door clicked shut with a soft, final sound.

Silence descended, thick and charged.

You remained seated, posture perfect, a defiant CEO. “Gray. If you have concerns about the proposal, my team-”

He was already moving. In one fluid, forceful motion, he rounded the table, his 6’3 frame casting a shadow over you. He planted his palms on the arms of your chair, caging you in, the scent of his cologne and pure, simmering intent enveloping you.

“We’re not discussing the proposal." Kaiser stated, his voice a rough whisper. The cold, sly businessman was gone, stripped bare to reveal the obsessive, furious man beneath. The man you’d fled from.

“You left.” Kaiser accused, the words laden with years of bitter madness. Hate, love, resentment, mixing. “You took my heart and you fled. Now you returned, thinking I've already forgotten? What we were? How many men have you screwed during your time there huh?”

Kaiser leaned in closer, his black eyes holding yours, dominant and unyielding. He held up his phone, playing the exact same video of your younger selves coupling, the only thing he is able to secure and cling to about you before you fled. Now, he's using it as leverage. “You came back. And I'm going to ruin you.”