9
Kaia’s POV
It had been ten years since I joined the Orman Group.
In that time, the formulas I’d developed helped them generate hundreds of billions in profit. Entire markets were reshaped because of my work.
I was no longer a secret chemist hiding behind a lab door -I was their prized asset.
And I was also Adam Orman’s girlfriend.
He told me he fell in love with me the first time he saw me. Maybe that was true. Maybe not. But being his meant I was given things most in the organization never got— freedom and security.
Thanks to Adam, I didn’t have to stay in Mexico full- time. I could travel. Often, he’d simply ask where I wanted to go next—and then take me there.
But because of who he was–and what the Orman Group was–we always traveled under the radar. Quiet flights. Unmarked reservations.
For the ten–year anniversary of my work with Orman, Adam decided to take me to France.
“France is especially beautiful in the winter,” he said.
Funny–someone else had once told me that. Sylvie.
She’d said it when she dragged my three brothers to the Alps while I disappeared into Mexico with a single suitcase and a shattered heart.
+15 Bonus
I don’t think of them much anymore. I’ve trained myself not to. But some days, a scent or a sentence unearths memories like landmines. I always bury them again.
That day, as Adam and I strolled under the Eiffel Tower, the air crisp with frost and champagne, I saw them.
Asher. Jace. Noah. They were standing across the plaza, staring.
