The Heiress Gambit-Chapter 34- Catching up

The boardroom door clicked shut behind Reomen, leaving me alone in the silent, opulent room. The air still hummed with the energy of our victory.

My father’s signature, bold and arrogant, was dried on the page that would begin his ruin.

A slow, deep breath escaped me. It was done. The first major step.

Reomen’s instruction echoed in my head. "Take the rest of the day off." It wasn’t a suggestion; it was an order, a king rewarding his pawn.

But today, I didn’t mind. The adrenaline was fading, leaving a pleasant exhaustion in its wake, and a deep, thrumming satisfaction.

I didn’t call for his driver. I needed space. I needed to move on my own terms. I walked out of the Daki Tech building and raised my hand, sliding into the backseat of a yellow cab that smelled of pine air freshener and old leather.

As the cab pulled into traffic, I let my head fall back against the seat. A smile I couldn’t suppress touched my lips. We did it. We actually did it. My father, the great Shunsuke Rimestone, had walked right into our trap, his pride blinding him to the cliff’s edge. The feeling was electric, a heady mix of vengeance and power.

But my mind, treacherous thing, didn’t stay on the deal. It drifted.

The memory of last night crashed over me without warning. The feeling of Reomen’s hands on my skin, not in anger or control, but in passion. The low sound of his voice in the dark, the weight of him, the way my own body had betrayed me, arching into his touch, begging for more.

A flush of heat went through me, unrelated to the cab’s stuffy warmth. I squeezed my eyes shut, but it only made the memories clearer. The look on his face in the gym this morning, the smug triumph as he saw the physical proof of our night written in my unsteady gait.

We were using each other. I repeated it to myself like a mantra. It’s a transaction. An alliance. He was using me for my insider knowledge, for my hatred of my family, and for... well, for whatever else he wanted. And I was using him for his resources, his power, his ruthless determination to burn my world down with me.

But the line was blurring. The pleasure was getting tangled up with the plan. The hatred was getting confused with a different kind of intensity.

The cab jerked to a stop outside my old Hell’s Kitchen walk-up. The familiar, slightly grimy brick facade was a shock after the glass and steel of Reomen’s world. It was a dose of reality.

I paid the driver and climbed out, my body still aching in a way that was a constant reminder of the man I was supposedly just using. I took the stairs slowly, each step a minor rebellion.

Pushing the door open, I was greeted by the sound of a game show on TV and the smell of lemon cleaner.

"Leon?" I called out.

He popped his head out from the kitchen, a dish towel in his hand. His eyes widened in surprise, then immediately narrowed in concern.

"Paige? What are you doing here? Is everything okay? Did something happen?"

I leaned against the doorframe, a real, genuine smile finally breaking through. "Everything is okay," I said, my voice full of a truth I couldn’t fully explain. "Actually, everything is perfect." 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

The confusion on his face was almost comical. He just stared at me, waiting for the catch.

Leon handed me a mug of tea, his eyebrows practically in his hairline. "Okay, start talking. ’Perfect’ isn’t a word you use lightly. Especially these days."

I took the mug, the warmth seeping into my hands. "We did it, Leon. He signed it. My father just walked into the trap and didn’t even blink."

His eyes went wide. "No way. The big deal? He just... signed?"

A genuine laugh escaped me. "He didn’t even read it. Reomen slid the paper over, asked if he’d reviewed it—a total lie, we just sent it—and he just pulled out his stupid fancy pen and signed. His ego is so big he thinks he’s too smart to get tricked." I shook my head, the smug joy bubbling up again. "He’s already broke. He just doesn’t know it yet."

Leon let out a low whistle, a slow grin spreading across his face. "Damn. That’s... that’s actually kind of beautiful. The great Shunsuke Rimestone, taken down by his own arrogance." He raised his own mug in a toast. "I’ll drink to that."

We sat for a minute in comfortable silence, just letting the victory settle. But I could feel his eyes on me, studying me. He saw the tiredness, the slight wince when I shifted on the couch.

"The deal isn’t the only thing that happened, is it?" he asked, his voice softer now.

I took a deep breath. This was the hard part. "The night before the meeting... something happened. In the kitchen."

I told him about the ramen, the steam, Reomen appearing from the shadows. I repeated his words, my face heating up. "I am starving for you." I told him about the kiss, how it felt like a fight and a surrender all at once. And I told him about the ultimatum. "I won’t touch you again until you beg me to."

Leon listened, his expression unreadable.

"The next day," I continued, the memory making my stomach twist, "Payton was there. In the boardroom. Flirting with him. Touching his arm. And he... he let her. He smirked. He looked at her like she was a mildly entertaining toy. And it made me so jealous I thought I would scream. I had to walk out."

I couldn’t look at Leon anymore. I stared into my tea. "Then last night... I said it. I told him I wanted him. And it was so annoying because I do, and I hate him for it."

I told him everything. The way Reomen had looked at me when I finally admitted it. The feel of his hands and his mouth on me. How he’d made me beg, and how I’d loved it. How he’d known exactly how to unravel me completely.

"And this morning," I finished, my voice barely a whisper. "In the gym... and then after, in his bedroom... he almost... we almost... again. I’m so sore I can barely walk, Leon. And he knows it. He loves that he knows it."

The room was quiet after I finished. I finally risked a glance at him. He was just staring at me, his mouth slightly agape. He looked like he’d just been told the sky was green.

He blinked slowly, then set his mug down with a definitive clink.

"Let me get this straight," he said, his voice flat with disbelief. "You’re in a revenge alliance with a human supercomputer who is also, apparently, a sex god. You’re successfully destroying your evil family. And the biggest problem you have is that the said sex god is too good in bed and it’s making you question your entire life’s philosophy?"

When he put it like that, it sounded ridiculous. A hysterical laugh bubbled in my throat. "Well... yes?"

Leon ran a hand over his face. "Paige. Honey. I told you the chemistry was a problem. I didn’t know it was a weapon of mass destruction." He sighed, but a small smile played on his lips. "You’re playing with nuclear fire. And from the look on your face, you’re loving getting burned."

He was right. I was. It was terrifying and thrilling and I had no idea how it would end. But for the first time in a long time, I felt truly, recklessly alive.

"I know," I said, finally meeting his gaze. "I know it’s a mess. We’re using each other. That’s all it is."

Leon just gave me a look that said he didn’t believe a word of it. "Keep telling yourself that, darling. Just try not to get your heart incinerated in the explosion."

He saw right through me. I couldn’t hold his knowing stare. I looked down at my hands, clasped tightly around the warm mug. "I’m not attached," I mumbled. The lie felt flimsy and weak, even to my own ears. It sounded like a child insisting they weren’t scared of the dark.

The silence that followed was heavy. He was waiting for me to break, to admit it. I couldn’t.

So I did the only thing I could think of. I changed the subject. My voice was a little too bright, a little too forced.

"Anyway," I said, waving a hand as if swatting the entire conversation away. "Enough about my... complicated mess. How’s Mark? Any new dramas I should know about?"

I looked up at him, hoping my smile looked convincing. Hoping he would take the bait and let me off the hook.

Leon’s expression softened. He knew exactly what I was doing, but he let me do it. He leaned back, a fond, exasperated smile touching his lips.

"Mark is... Mark," he said, rolling his eyes but in a way that showed he adored him. "He tried to reorganize my spice rack again last night. By ’color.’ I nearly had a heart attack trying to find the cumin. We had a very serious, very dramatic talk about boundaries and the inherent system of alphabetical order."

I laughed, a real one this time, the tension seeping out of my shoulders. "A crime against humanity. How did you recover?"

"With a strongly worded text and the promise of takeout," he said, grinning. "He’s picking up Thai on his way over tonight. You should stay. Hide from your billionaire boss for a few more hours."

For a moment, it was just us again. Me and Leon. Best friends. In my messy apartment, talking about his boyfriend and spice rack dramas. It was normal. It was safe. It was a lifeline back to the person I was before Reomen Daki and revenge plans and world-shattering kisses.

It was exactly what I needed.

"Sure, I’ll stay a while," I said, the words feeling like a balm. Leon’s apartment was a time capsule of my old life. The worn couch, the smell of Thai food on its way, the easy comfort of his friendship.

It was a shield against the glittering, high-stakes world of Reomen Daki.

I curled my feet underneath me on the couch, accepting the fresh cup of tea Leon offered. For a few precious minutes, we just talked about nothing. About Mark’s disastrous cooking attempts, about a ridiculous customer at the bar, about a movie we wanted to see. Normal things. Simple things.

But even here, surrounded by the familiar, I couldn’t fully escape. The soft ache in my muscles was a constant, phantom reminder.

My mind kept drifting back to the boardroom, to the look on my father’s face as he signed his own ruin. A shiver of pure, unadulterated victory ran through me.

Then it would drift again, to the dark of Reomen’s bedroom, to the feel of his skin under my hands, to the possessive look in his eyes this morning.

The two feelings were tangled together now—vengeance and desire. One fueled the other. I was using him for the first, and maybe, just maybe, I was starting to crave the second.

I took a sip of tea, trying to anchor myself in the moment. I was safe here. For now.