The Palm Reader's Office

The air conditioning in Elena's corner office had died three hours ago, leaving her with sweat slicking her palms against the leather desk chair. Outside, the Miami heat pressed against floor-to-ceiling windows, palm trees swaying like indifferent witnesses to her destruction.

Marcus stood across from her, hat in hand, looking like a man who'd just realized he'd been caught in his own trap. His fedora—a ridiculous affectation she'd once found charming—now seemed like part of a costume he'd been wearing all along.

"So you're the one," Elena said, her voice steady despite the hollowed-out feeling in her chest. "Corporate sent a spy."

"It wasn't like that—"

"Bull." She shoved the surveillance logs across her desk. "Three months of dinners, two months of sleeping together, and you're filing reports on our R&D department the whole time. That's what this was?"

Marcus's cat—a sleek black creature named Neo—padded into the office and wound around his legs, unaware that his world was about to collapse. The sight of it made something in her chest crack.

"They were going to expose those safety violations, El. I saved your—"

"You saved nothing. You bought time." She stood, grabbed her bag, pressed her palm against the doorframe. "I'm going to legal. Then I'm going to the press. Whatever corporate secrets you think you stolen? They're nothing compared to what I'm going to give them."

Marcus's face changed then. Something cold came into his eyes—the spy finally dropping the lover mask. "You do that, and those offshore accounts in your name? The ones your husband doesn't know about? Those become very public very quickly."

Elena froze. He hadn't just been spying on the company.

The black cat leaped onto her desk and knocked over a framed photo—her and Marcus at some charity gala, laughing, champagne glasses raised. The glass didn't break. It just spun slowly on its side.

"Checkmate," Marcus said softly, putting his hat back on.

Elena sank into her chair as he walked out. The palm trees outside kept swaying, and somewhere distant, thunder rolled in over Miami like the world's slowest applause.