My fiancé bragged to his friends about poking holes in our condoms to trap me at home and steal my director's chair, unaware I was recording every word.

By 8:45 a.m., the executive floor of Davenport Group was humming with morning activity. Junior analysts scuttled between glass-walled offices with folders, and the scent of freshly ground Colombian roast drifted through the corridor.

Arianna was seated at her desk, reviewing the quarterly balance sheets for the Vance Logistics acquisition—a thirty-million-dollar deal that she had orchestrated from scratch.

The heavy glass door of her office swung open without a knock.

Logan strolled in, holding two designer paper cups from the artisan café downstairs. He had showered, shaved, and splashed on enough cologne to mask the remnants of last night's whiskey. His smile was dazzling, calibrated to exude warmth and protective masculinity.

"Morning, beautiful," he said, setting a cup on her blotter. "Decaf oat latte for the mother of my future child. You weren't in bed when I woke up. You shouldn't be pushing yourself so early, Ari. You need your rest."

Arianna looked up from her spreadsheet, her gaze completely neutral. She didn't touch the coffee.

"The Vance merger doesn't sleep, Logan," she said evenly. "We have the preliminary board review at two o'clock. There's a four percent discrepancy in their reported operating liabilities."

Logan chuckled softly, coming around the desk to place his hands on her shoulders. Arianna felt a wave of revulsion roll through her gut, but she forced her muscles not to flinch. His touch felt like cold grease against her skin.

"Look at you," he murmured, leaning down to press a kiss against the side of her neck. "Still obsessing over numbers. Honey, let me handle the Vance presentation this afternoon. In fact, why don't I take the lead on the entire closing phase? You’ve got morning nausea coming, doctors' appointments, hormones... The board will understand if you step back to focus on building our family."

*Building our family.*

The sheer audacity of the phrase made Arianna’s blood boil, but she looked up at him through long eyelashes, letting a soft, hesitating vulnerability flicker across her features. It was an award-winning performance.

"You really think you can handle the board without me, Logan?" she asked, tilting her head. "Mr. Harrison from the audit committee is notoriously brutal on acquisition debt ratios."

Logan’s chest puffed up under his tailored suit. "Harrison is old-school. He respects a man who knows how to take charge of a crisis. Trust me, babe. I’ve been shadowing you on this deal for months. I know the figures inside and out. Just sit back, look pretty, and let me be the provider. Isn't that what you want?"

"You've thought about this a lot, haven't you?" Arianna asked softly.

"I think about our future every second," Logan said, his grin widening with arrogant triumph. He tapped the desk twice. "Drink your decaf. I'm going to run over the slides in my office. At two o'clock, I'll do the heavy lifting."

He turned and strode out of her office, his step light, his shoulders squared with the swagger of a man who believed the world was already his.

As soon as the door clicked shut, Arianna picked up the paper cup of decaf latte, walked over to the wastebasket beside the credenza, and tipped it upside down. She watched the warm liquid soak into the paper trash.

Then she picked up her private line and dialed extension 404.

"Mark?" she spoke into the receiver.

"Yes, Arianna?" answered Mark Taylor, Davenport's chief systems administrator, who owed his career to Arianna after she cleared him of a false corporate espionage charge three years ago.

"The secondary pitch deck for the Vance acquisition," Arianna said coolly. "Upload the decoy version to the shared executive cloud drive. Tag it under my private project folder, but leave the access permissions set to 'collaborator view' for Logan's IP address."

Mark hesitated for half a second. "The one with the fabricated offshore asset valuations?"