The Dominant Ceo's New Contract : The Ruthless Tycoon's Fifty Shades Contract

Nora's POV

The elevator was moving slow.

I stood in the middle of it and watched the numbers count down and thought about nothing. That was the strange part. After everything I'd just seen, after everything Sienna had said — my mind was completely quiet.

Fourteen. Thirteen. Twelve.

She'll forgive you. She always does.

I had forgiven him. That was the thing sitting heavy in my chest right now. I had forgiven Derek plenty of times over two years. The cancelled plans. The way he'd missed my company's anniversary dinner because of a work trip he'd booked without telling me. The birthday he'd spent mostly on his phone.

Small things. Ordinary things. The kind of things you chalk up to a person being human and flawed and yours anyway.

He was always so good after. That was what made it easy. He'd show up with food, say the right things, look at me like I was the only person in the room, and I'd think — this is what love looks like. Imperfect and real.

Six. Five. Four.

I thought about the meals.

Every Tuesday and Thursday he'd arrive at my hospital room with containers of food, still warm. Told me he'd cooked them himself. I'd believed him completely because of course I had — Derek was meticulous, controlled, the kind of man who followed recipes to the letter.

The elevator opened.

My stomach turned.

Her kitchen. His apartment. Sienna standing over a stove in whatever she wore when she was comfortable, cooking the meals I had eaten in a hospital bed and felt grateful for.

I walked out into the lobby and pushed through the front door.

My phone buzzed. Sienna's name on the screen. I almost didn't open it.

It was a digital wedding invite. Clean design, elegant font, their names side by side.

Derek Mao & Sienna Park

request the pleasure of your company…

She'd had it ready. She had sent it within minutes of me walking out the door, like she'd been waiting for the right moment. Like this was just an item on a list she was finally getting to check off.

I stared at it until the words blurred.

Dr. Patel's voice came back to me. You're lucky to have such a devoted boyfriend.

I put my phone in my pocket and started walking.

I don't know how long I walked before I noticed it was raining.

My hair was flat against my face, my discharge clothes soaked through, my bag doing nothing to protect anything inside it. I kept walking anyway. The street was grey and wet and the city moved around me like I wasn't there.

I thought about the first time Derek told me he loved me. We were in his kitchen. He'd made pasta and it was slightly overcooked and he'd been so annoyed at himself that I'd laughed, and that was when he said it — just blurted it out, like it surprised him too.

I'd thought about that night so many times.

I wondered now if Sienna had been in that kitchen too. If she'd been there before me, after me, during the same week. I wondered exactly how long I had been the last to know.

My dad's name lit up my screen.

I watched it ring.

He called again. Then a third time. Then a fourth. I counted them the way I'd counted the minutes in the car outside Derek's building. Something to focus on. Fifth call. I let it ring out.

Whatever he needed, it was a business deal. It was always a business deal. My father didn't call five times out of concern — he called five times when something needed to be managed, and I was usually the most convenient tool available.

Not today.

I kept walking.

A car slowed beside me.

The window came down and Yuna leaned across the passenger seat with an umbrella in one hand and a tote bag in the other and the expression of someone who had been frantically rerouting their entire afternoon.

"Get in," she said.

"How did you—"

"I called the hospital when I saw your text. They said you'd already left." She pushed the door open. "You've been walking for twenty minutes, Nora. In the rain. Get in the car."

I got in.

She handed me the umbrella first, then the tote bag. Inside was a change of clothes — jeans, a clean sweater, my spare sneakers that I kept in her car for reasons neither of us had ever examined too closely.

"I'm sorry about the missed calls," she said, already pulling into traffic. "I was at—" She stopped.

"Where were you?" I asked.

A pause. The kind that means someone is rearranging what they were about to say.

I already knew.

"It doesn't matter," I said quietly. "Whatever you saw — it's fine. He's my ex."

Yuna didn't say anything for a moment. Then she reached over and put her hand briefly on mine. That was all. No speech, no I told you so, no wide-eyed performance of shock.

That was why she was the only person I trusted completely.

Her phone rang through the car speakers. The screen on the dashboard read: Mr. Ashfield.

We both looked at it.

"Take it," I said.

She answered. "Mr. Ashfield, this is Yuna—"

"Where is she." Not a question. His voice was flat and stripped of its usual authority, which was strange enough that I sat up straighter.

"Sir, she's with me. We're—"

"Bring her to the mansion. Now." Another pause. Something underneath his voice I had never heard before. "Please."

Yuna glanced at me. I nodded.

My father didn't say please.

My father didn't say please, and his voice had never sounded like that, and when we pulled up to the mansion every light in the house was on even though it was the middle of the day.

I walked in.

My mother was sitting on the stairs with both hands over her mouth. Two of my father's assistants were standing against the wall doing nothing. Someone was crying in the next room.

My father walked out of his study.

He looked older than he had the last time I'd seen him. Like the last few hours had taken something from him that wasn't coming back.

"Dad," I said. "What happened?"

He looked at me for a long moment.

"Your grandfather is dead."

The room tilted.

"What?!"