Zane stood in the center of the empty suite long after she left, the silence almost too loud. Her face, her voice — there was something about her that refused to leave his mind.
He never forgot faces. He couldn't afford to.
Yet Lyra Lawson had slipped through the cracks of his memory, and now… she felt like a puzzle piece he'd lost somewhere important.
He took a sip of his now-cold coffee and pulled out his phone.
"Find out everything you can about Lyra Lawson," he texted his assistant. "Discreetly."
Across town, Lyra was trying to pull herself together in the cramped break room.
"You okay?" her friend and co-worker, Tasha, asked.
Lyra gave her the most believable smile she could manage. "I'm fine. Just tired."
Tasha raised an eyebrow. "That the billionaire suite again?"
Lyra nodded. "Yeah. He was there this time."
"Oof. Was he rude?"
"No… just—" Lyra hesitated. "Too curious."
Tasha shrugged. "Rich men always think the world revolves around them. Don't let him get in your head."
Too late.
Lyra spent the rest of the day checking her phone every hour, terrified she'd see Zane's name — or worse, a message from the hotel firing her.
But nothing came.
And that night, as she lay beside Noah's crib and brushed her fingers through his soft curls, she whispered the same promise she'd made a hundred times before.
"I'll protect you. No matter what."
But deep down, something had already shifted.
Zane Hogan was looking too closely.
And secrets had a way of breaking free… no matter how deep you buried them.