The penthouse was silent when Elena let herself in. Adrian's private key card, the one he had pressed into her palm three weeks ago with the instruction to use it whenever she pleased, glinted under the hallway sconce as she slid it back into her clutch. She had never used it uninvited before. Tonight, she had not asked permission.

She found him in his study, the same room where she had first learned to kneel, to present herself, to take his cock down her throat until tears streamed and her voice went raw. He was seated behind the vast mahogany desk, shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow, reviewing documents with the focused intensity of a man who commanded billions. He did not look up immediately, and she used the pause to study him: the sharp cut of his jaw, the silver threading his dark hair, the powerful breadth of his shoulders beneath the fine cotton. Forty years old, and he radiated more masculine authority than any man she had ever known.