Chapter 361 Love or Leverage

Emilia’s POV

That afternoon, the office got a visitor nobody had rolled out the red carpet for.

The woman breezed into the secretary’s office like she owned the place, and the second she crossed the threshold, I froze. So did she.

Abigail Tanner.

We locked eyes across the room, and the tension between us sharpened at once.

“Easy,” Eve murmured somewhere in the back of my skull. “Claws stay in. For now.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Funny.” She tilted her head, lips curling. “I was about to ask you the exact same thing.”

I smiled, slow and sweet. “This happens to be my husband’s company. Remind me why I’d need a permission slip to stand in it?”

“Hm.” She let out a cold little laugh and looked me up and down as if I were something stuck to her shoe. “Has Sebastian’s empire really crumbled so far that he’s dragging your help in to prop it up?”

“None of that is your business,” I shot back. “And what exactly do you plan to do about it?”

Her face darkened. She turned on her heel and marched straight for the CEO’s office. Her hand was already raised to knock when she stopped, pivoted, and threw the words over her shoulder.

“Right. I nearly forgot. You can’t give him pups, can you? So you had to carve out some other use for yourself. Otherwise, you’d be completely worthless.”

My hand found a folder before my brain caught up. I hurled it across the room. It smacked the door with a satisfying thud and slid to the floor.

Abigail was already inside.

“Oooh, nice arm,” Eve said. “Pity she ducked.”

“She didn’t duck. She’s just fast,” I muttered, bending to retrieve the scattered papers. “Next time, I’m aiming for something that leaves a mark.”

Half an hour crawled by. Then the door swung open, and Abigail sauntered out. She slowed just long enough to give me one last contemptuous glance, chin high, before she strutted off down the hall as if she’d won.

The moment she was gone, Sebastian strolled over to my desk, cocked his head, and studied me. “What’s with the face? Are you sulking?”

“What was she doing here?” I asked flatly.

“What do you think? We were going over the evidence she had against my parents.” He leaned a hip against the desk.

So. The case. “Is it handled?”

“She asked me out tomorrow night. To talk.”

I frowned. “And you said yes?”

“We have to settle this sooner or later. Better sooner.” He shrugged.

“Have you decided where you’re meeting her?”

“I’ll pick the place.”

“And where would that be?”

“The club. My usual.”

Some of the tension drained from my shoulders. His club meant his turf, his people, his rules. That, at least, I could live with. Still, I held his gaze and lowered my voice.

“Be careful. The woman who just walked out of here isn’t the Abigail Tanner you used to know.”

Sebastian nodded, and this time, there was no smirk. “Don’t worry. I know exactly what I’m doing.”

Sebastian’s POV

Time passed quickly, I was meeting Abigail Tanner in a private room at the Golurium Club.

“Something to drink?” I asked.

“Iced tea.”

I flagged the waiter. “Two iced teas.”

Once he slipped out, the room went dead quiet, nothing left but the sound of us both breathing.

I leaned back. “So. What’s it going to take to make you destroy the evidence against my parents?”

She didn’t answer right away. Instead she reached into her bag, drew out a thick file, and slid it across the table. “It’s all here. Every original. Check for yourself.”

I flipped through it, page by page. Signed statements from the men who’d carried out those old crimes. Photographs. A recording disc. My jaw tightened as I nodded. “What are your terms? Name them.”

“There are no terms.”

I blinked. For a second I was sure I’d misheard. “What do you mean, no terms?”

Abigail met my eyes. “Sebastian, is that really all I am to you? Someone who only trades in leverage? Did it never once cross your mind that I might hand these over simply because I still love you?”

I studied her. “You’re telling me you’d give me every scrap of this, free and clear.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be honest with you.” I set the file down. “That thought never entered my head. Years ago, maybe I’d have believed it. But now? I don’t have much faith left in you.”

Her face crumpled. “Why? What did I ever do to make you hate me?”

“I don’t hate you.” I shook my head slowly. “We’ve just drifted so far apart I can barely see where your mind goes anymore.”

“Because I questioned you over that business with Emilia?”

“It’s more than that. It showed up in a dozen other ways.”

“Then tell me which ways,” she pressed.

I exhaled. “Let it go, Abigail. We’re not lovers anymore. There’s no point dragging all this back up.”

“I can’t change unless you tell me.”