Chapter 19. Silk Chains

Harper woke to silence—not the absence of sound, but the weighted quiet of anticipation. The kind that settled on your skin before a storm, disguised as calm.

Filtered daylight spilled through the penthouse’s glass walls, cutting soft ribbons of light across the slate floors. Technically, the suite wasn’t hers—yet. The Board had mandated it as a “temporary measure,” a shared living and strategy space between Harper and Knox. To foster alignment, they’d said. A phrase too polished to be anything but a trap.

What they really wanted was proximity.

Visibility.

Control.

And conflict—if it came gift-wrapped in civility.

She turned slightly.

Knox lay beside her, one arm flung lazily over the sheets, the sharp lines of his collarbones visible beneath the cotton. His body was still, but not at rest. Even asleep, he held tension in the edges of his jaw, like he was bracing for a conversation he’d never agreed to start.

Last night hadn’t been swe