Chapter 5

Alexander returned Monday morning looking exhausted but relieved. Emma was going to be fine—broken bones, concussion, but alive.

He walked into his office to find everything exactly as it should be. Files organized. Messages prioritized. Coffee waiting. And Sophia at the conference table, reviewing contracts like she hadn’t just run his entire company for three days.

“Report,” he said, setting down his bag.

She looked up, and the concern in her brown eyes hit him in the chest. “Emma?”

“Arguing with her doctors about discharge dates. She’ll be fine.”

“Thank God.” Sophia’s relief was genuine, and something in Alexander’s chest tightened. “The Yamamoto signing went perfectly. The board has their quarterly reports. And Morrison tried to start trouble about you being ‘unavailable during a crisis,’ but I shut that down.”

“How?”

Her smile was sharp. “I reminded him that family emergencies are protected under company policy, and any board member who wanted to make that an issue could explain their position to HR and the press. He backed down quickly.”

Alexander found himself smiling. “You threatened him.”

“I educated him. On the importance of basic human decency.”

“And the Nakamura contract?”

“Finalized. They were impressed by the efficiency.”

“The Henderson situation?”

“Resolved. They apologized for the delay.”

Alexander leaned against his desk, studying her. “You ran my company for three days and made it look easy.”

“It wasn’t easy. But I managed.” She paused. “How are you? Really?”

The question surprised him. People asked about Emma, about the business, about damages control. No one asked about him.

“Scared,” he admitted. “When I got that call, all I could think was ‘not again.’ Not another person I love taken away.”

Sophia stood, moving closer. “But she’s okay. She’s going to be fine.”

“This time.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Do you know what the worst part was? Driving to Boston, not knowing if she’d still be alive when I got there. Sitting in that hospital waiting room, remembering what it felt like when my mother—”

He stopped. He didn’t talk about this. Didn’t let people see this vulnerable side.

But Sophia’s hand found his, squeezing gently. “You don’t have to be strong all the time, you know.”

“Yes, I do. If I stop being strong, even for a moment—”

“The world doesn’t end, Alexander. You’re allowed to be human.”

He laughed bitterly. “Being human is a luxury I can’t afford. Not in this world.”

“That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Something in her voice made him look at her—really look at her. Sophia Martinez from Queens, who’d fought her way up from nothing, who challenged him at every turn, who’d somehow become essential to his life in three weeks.

“What are we doing?” he asked quietly.

“I don’t know. But I know I’m not sorry about Friday night.”

“You should be. I’m your boss. This is every bad workplace relationship cliché rolled into one.”

“Maybe. Or maybe we’re two people who understand each other in ways no one else does.” She stepped closer. “You said we’d finish this conversation.”

“Sophia—”

“Do you want me to leave? To find another job? Because if this is genuinely just physical attraction that’s going to fade, tell me now. I’ll tender my resignation, we’ll part professionally, and that will be that.”

His hands fisted at his sides. The thought of her leaving, of losing her, sent panic through him.

“No.”

“No, you don’t want me to leave? Or no, it’s not just physical?”

“Both.” He moved closer, unable to help himself. “You terrify me, Sophia Martinez. You walk into my life and turn everything upside down. You challenge me, you see through my masks, you refuse to be intimidated. And when you look at me like that—”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m not a monster. Like I’m worth something more than my bank account and business strategy.”

Her hand came up to cup his face, thumb tracing the scar on his temple. “You are worth more. You’re brilliant and complicated and yes, sometimes ruthless. But you’re also someone who drops everything for family. Who gives chances to people from Queens with nothing to lose. Who pretends not to care but cares desperately.”

“You don’t know me as well as you think.”

“Don’t I?” Her smile was soft. “I know you take your coffee black because your father drank it that way. I know you hate the color yellow because your mother’s car was yellow. I know you work yourself to exhaustion because stopping means thinking about everything you’ve lost. And I know that beneath the ruthless CEO is someone who’s just trying not to lose anyone else.”

Alexander felt something crack open in his chest—something he’d kept locked away for fifteen years.

“If we do this,” he said quietly, “if we cross this line, there’s no going back. The board will use it against me. The press will have a field day. Your reputation will be collateral damage.”

“I’m aware of the risks.”

“And you’re willing to take them?”

“Are you?”

The question hung between them, loaded with possibility and danger.

Alexander had spent fifteen years building walls, protecting himself, refusing to let anyone get close. He’d learned that love meant loss, that caring meant vulnerability, that opening up meant getting destroyed.

But Sophia was looking at him like he was worth the risk. Like they were worth the risk.

“I’m terrified,” he admitted.

“Me too.”

“This could destroy both of us.”

“Probably.”

“We should be smart about this. Careful. Professional.”

“Absolutely.”

Neither of them moved.

Then Alexander’s hand slid into her hair, tilting her face up. “Last chance to run.”

“I’m not running.”

“Good.” His mouth came down on hers, and this kiss was different from Friday’s desperate collision. This was deliberate, intentional—a promise and a claiming all at once.

Sophia melted into him, her hands fisting in his shirt, and Alexander felt something slot into place. Like a puzzle piece he hadn’t known was missing.

When they finally broke apart, both breathing hard, he rested his forehead against hers.

“We’re going to have to tell HR,” he murmured.

“Eventually.”

“And set very clear boundaries about work and personal life.”

“Definitely.”

“And probably attend some kind of workplace relationship training.”

She laughed against his mouth. “You’re so romantic.”

“I’m serious, Sophia. If we’re doing this, we’re doing it right. No secrets, no hiding, no letting this affect your career.”

“Our careers.”

“Our careers,” he agreed. “The moment you feel like this is impacting your professional growth—”

“I’ll tell you. And you’ll listen. Because that’s what adults in healthy relationships do.”

“Healthy relationships,” he repeated, testing the words. “Is that what this is?”

“I don’t know what this is yet. But I know I want to find out.”

Alexander pulled back slightly, studying her face—taking in the intelligence in her brown eyes, the determination in her jawline, the softness in her smile.

“I’m going to disappoint you,” he warned. “I’m going to be difficult and controlling and probably work too much. I’m going to have days where the past catches up with me and I’m not fit for human company. I’m going to—”

“Be human. Flawed. Complicated.” She smiled. “I can handle that. Can you handle me challenging you when you’re being an idiot?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No.”

“Then I guess we’re doing this.”

“I guess we are.”

The kiss that followed was softer, sweeter—a promise instead of a claiming. And when they finally broke apart, Alexander felt something he hadn’t felt in fifteen years:

Hope.

“So,” Sophia said, adjusting her thoroughly wrinkled dress, “how do we do this? Tell HR today? Wait a week? What’s the protocol for ‘I’m sleeping with my boss and also running his company’?”

Alexander laughed—a real laugh, not the sharp corporate one he used in meetings. “I have absolutely no idea. This is entirely new territory.”

“Good. I like new territory.”

“That’s because you’re insane.”

“You like that about me.”

“Unfortunately, yes.” He kissed her forehead, then reluctantly stepped back. “We should probably actually work at some point today.”

“Probably.” But neither of them moved.

Finally, Sophia grabbed her tablet, settling into the chair across from his desk. “Alright, Mr. Sterling. Let’s get to work. You have about forty-seven things that need your attention.”

“Only forty-seven? I’m slipping.”

“Forty-eight if you count the journalist from Forbes trying to dig up dirt on the Yamamoto acquisition.”

Alexander’s expression hardened slightly, the CEO mask sliding back into place. But now Sophia knew what was beneath it—the man who cared too much, who feared too much, who loved too fiercely.

“Handle it,” he said. “You know what to say.”

“I do.” She smiled. “We make a good team, you know.”

“I know.” His eyes met hers across the desk, gray and intense and full of promises. “That’s what scares me.”

“Welcome to the club. Now come on—we have an empire to run.”

As they dove into work, falling into the easy rhythm they’d developed over the past weeks, Alexander realized something profound:

For fifteen years, he’d been building Sterling Industries to prove something. To show the world that he wasn’t his father’s son, that he could succeed where his family had failed, that he was worth something.

But somewhere along the way, he’d forgotten that success without someone to share it with was just another kind of loneliness.

Sophia changed that. She challenged him, matched him, made him want to be better not for the company, but for himself.

And maybe, just maybe, that was worth the risk.