Chapter 41: King of Pride: Chapter 41

Instead of going to another bar, Isabella and I walked the nearby Brooklyn Bridge. The chill of winter thinned its foot traffic considerably, but there were still a handful of couples, photographers, and tourists keeping us company as we strolled toward Manhattan.

The temperature hovered in the mid-thirties, so low our breaths formed small white puffs in the air. Nevertheless, warmth spread through my veins, insulating me from the cold.

Being near Isabella again was worth braving any brutal weather.

I would have to thank Clarissa later. I’d told her what happened with Isabella on our way to the bar, mainly because she was the only unbiased party I could talk to about the situation, and I didn’t believe for a second that she’d left because she was sick.

Running into Isabella tonight was a stroke of luck, and I had no intention of wasting it.

“So when exactly is the new vote?” Isabella asked with a sideways glance.

“Tomorrow.” I shoved my hands deeper into my pockets to keep from touching her. Her cheeks were red and her hair was tangled from the wind. Her eyeliner had smudged somewhere between the bar and the bridge, lending her an adorably raccoon-esque appearance.

And she looked so damn beautiful it made my heart stop for a second, just long enough to confirm she owned every beat.

Isabella halted dead in her tracks. “Tomorrow?

tomorrow?”

“Yes.” A smile ghosted my mouth at her wide eyes. “Tomorrow tomorrow. As in Friday. D-day. Whatever you want to call it.”

The past two weeks had been a whirlwind. Russell was officially fired and under criminal investigation for his activities. A majority of the blackmailed board members had resigned, triggering an emergency shareholder meeting to elect their replacements. The Young Corporation and Black & Co. were embroiled in a nasty legal fight across half a dozen fronts. It was a mess, but the sooner we dealt with it, the sooner we could move on.

Chaos only made for good business when it involved other people, not our own.

“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be securing votes and doing other…pre-selection things?” A blast of wind tossed Isabella’s question through the air.

“There’s nothing else I can do at this point.” I was remarkably calm about the vote this time around. It was down to the original candidates minus Russell—Tobias (who’d reentered the race), Laura, Paxton, and myself. I was confident about my chances, but a quarter of the board members were new, and I didn’t know which way they leaned.

However, I’d discovered over the past two weeks that losing the CEO position wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to me.

Losing Isabella was, and that had already come to pass.

A familiar ache surged through my chest. It was torture being this close to her without touching her, but at least she was , in the flesh, instead of haunting my thoughts.

“We can continue discussing the vote, but I’m guessing you didn’t ask me here to talk about work,” I said.

Her throat worked with a visible swallow.

Our last conversation swirled around us, carrying away our small talk and leaving fresh wounds and shattered hearts behind.

Even now, weeks later, the memory of her words punched me through the chest with unrestrained brutality.

“I don’t know why I asked you here.” Isabella’s eyes dipped. “But I…when I saw you, I…”

The ache expanded into my throat. “I know,” I said quietly. “I miss you too, love.”

A tiny sob rent the air, and when she lifted her head, my heart cracked ever so slightly at tears staining her cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” Isabella whispered. “That night, I didn’t mean to…I—” Her sentence cut off with another hiccupping sob.

The sound ripped through me like a bullet, and I would’ve given up anything—my title, my company, my entire legacy—if it meant I could soothe her hurt for just one minute.

“Shh. It’s okay.” I gathered her in my arms while she buried her face in my chest, her shoulders shaking. She’d always seemed larger than life, with her uninhibited laugh and vibrant personality, but she felt so small and vulnerable in that moment that a sharp pain twisted my gut.

I hoped to God no one ever found out about the power this woman had over me, or I would be done for.

The night I walked out of her apartment, I’d drowned my sorrows in scotch and cursed every single person who had a hand in us meeting. Parker at Valhalla for hiring her, Dante and Vivian for always forcing me into the same room as her, her damn parents for giving birth to her. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t have met Isabella, and I wouldn’t have a hole the size of Jupiter in my chest.

I’d played, replayed, and dissected every second of our relationship until the memories bled out of me and I was empty. And when it was all gone—the anger, the hurt, the pain—the only thing left was a dark, gaping numbness.

I didn’t blame Isabella for what she did. Not anymore. The past month had taken a toll on both of us, and she’d been reeling from her visit home. The only thing I hated more than being apart from her was the knowledge of how poorly she viewed herself. She had no idea how incredible she was, and it killed me.

I tucked my head against the top of her head and tightened my hold around her when another icy gust slammed into us. The bridge had emptied; we were the only people brave or stupid enough to stay here while the temperatures dipped.

Surrounded by water, with the far-off lights of Manhattan on one side and Brooklyn on the other, the air silent save for Isabella’s soft sobs and the wind’s whistling howls, I had the eerie sense that we were the only people left in the world.

“You never asked me your question,” I said when her cries died down to sniffles.

She lifted her head, her eyes swollen and her brow etched with confusion. “What?”

“From our balloon night in Bushwick.” I rubbed a stray tear off her cheek with my thumb. “You never asked me your question.”

Isabella let out a half-laugh, half-sob. “I can’t believe you remember that.”

“I remember everything when it comes to you.”

Her smile faded, disappearing into the billows of tension around us. Bone-deep cold stole through me, both from the weather and the agonizing anticipation of what she would say next.

“Be honest,” she said softly. “Do you really see a future for us?”

I opened my mouth, but she shook her head.

“Don’t give me a packaged answer. I want you to think about it. Our families, our goals, our personalities. They’re completely different. It’s easy to say we can overcome the differences now, when everything is new and exciting, but what happens five, ten years down the road? I don’t…” Her breath trembled on an inhale. “I never want us to resent each other.”

Her words pricked at my chest.

She wasn’t wrong. We were opposites in almost every way, from our habits and hobbies to our temperaments and taste in books. There was a time not too long ago when her eccentricities had repelled me as much as they’d attracted me. She was everything I shouldn’t want, but it didn’t matter.

I wanted her anyway. So much so, I couldn’t breathe.

But Isabella didn’t want emotion right now. She wanted logic, a concrete reason for why we would work, so I took a page out of my old Oxford debate playbook and refuted her arguments one by one.

“I understand what you’re saying, but your premise is flawed,” I said. “Our families aren’t that different. We have similar cultures, upbringings, and wealth.” The Valencias weren’t billionaires, but their hotels pulled in several hundred million dollars last year alone. They were more than comfortable. “Perhaps yours is less formal than mine, but that isn’t a dealbreaker by any means.”

“Your mom also hates me,” Isabella pointed out. “It’s bound to cause more friction sooner or later.”

“She doesn’t hate you. Her concerns have nothing to do with you as a person. She was simply worried about the effect our relationship would have on the CEO vote and my future.” A wry smile twisted my mouth. “The vote isn’t an issue anymore, and she’ll come around. Even if she doesn’t, I’m an adult. I don’t need my mother’s approval to be with who I want.” My voice softened. “And I want you.”

Isabella’s eyes glistened with emotion. Moonlight kissed her cheekbones, tracing the delicate lines of her face and lips the way I so desperately craved to do with my mouth.

I almost laughed when the thought crossed my mind. I never imagined I’d be jealous of nature, but here we were.

“There are other women who would fit into your world better,” she said. “Women without tattoos and purple hair and…and pet snakes. Who never get caught talking about sex at the worst times.”

This time, I did laugh. Quietly, but it was there. Only Isabella could make me laugh in the middle of the most important conversation of my life. It was one of the many reasons why I’d brave the Brooklyn Bridge in the dead of winter for her.

A small smile touched her lips before it faded. “I’m never going to stop being me, Kai, and I don’t want you to stop being you. So how can we be together when we belong to separate worlds?”

“By building one of our own,” I said simply.

“That’s unreasonable.”

“I don’t care. This isn’t about It’s about love, and there’s nothing reasonable about love.”

The wind whisked the words away as soon as they left my mouth, but their impact lingered—in the audible hitch of Isabella’s breath, in the cascade of nerves rattling through my body. They left me feeling exposed and vulnerable, like my skin was no longer a barrier between me and the outside world, but I forged on.

“I love you, Isabella Valencia.” Simple and raw, stripped of all pretense except for the naked truth that had been staring me in the face all this time. “Every single part of you, from your laugh to your humor to the way you can’t stop talking about condoms.”

One of those laughs I loved so much slipped out, thick with emotion.

A smile flashed across my face before I sobered again. “You think you’re broken, but I wish you could see yourself the way I see you. Smart. Strong. Beautiful. Imperfect by your own standards but so wonderfully perfect for me.”

A fresh tear streaked down Isabella’s cheek. Unlike her earlier sobs, this one was silent, but it seared through me all the same.

I’d never fallen in love before her. Once I did, I did it the way I did everything else. Completely. Totally. Irrevocably.

“I’ve always prided myself on being the best. I had to be number one. I had to win. I collected prizes and awards because I saw them as a reflection of my self-worth, and I thought nothing tasted better than victory. Then I met you.” I swallowed the emotion burning in my throat. “And everything else…faded. We’ve been through some dark times, but you were the brightest part of my life. Even when we broke up. Even when I walked out. Just knowing you existed somewhere in this world was enough.”

Isabella pressed a fist to her mouth, her eyes glossy in the silver light.

“I never really lived before you,” I said. “And I don’t want to imagine living after you.” I dropped my forehead to hers, my chest aching with need and want and a thousand other emotions only she could make me feel. “Stay with me, love. Please.”

A small sob bled through and soaked the night.

“You idiot,” she said, her cheeks wet with tears. “You had me at .”

Relief had the weight sliding off my shoulders. My body sagged, and the hands strangling my lungs loosened enough for a laugh to break free.

“I’m not surprised,” I murmured. “You do have a special fondness for condoms, especially of the—”

“Kai.”

“Hmm?”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

So I did, deeply and tenderly, while the memories of us drifted back into my chest and settled where they belonged.