Page 98 of Falling for the Grump Billionaire

Her face pales. “It’s Adrian.”

I nod, stepping back to give her space. She answers the call, her voice steady despite the flush on her cheeks.

“What is it?” she asks, her brows furrowing as she listens. “Send it to me.”

She ends the call and turns to me, holding up her phone. “Adrian found something.”

I take the device, scanning the email she’s pulled up. It’s dated months before the first breach, a warning from someone in my company about vulnerabilities in the system. The words blur for a moment as I realize the implications.

“You knew about this?” she asks, her voice trembling.

I look at her, my chest tightening. “No. I didn’t see this email.”

Her expression hardens. “How could you not see it? It’s addressed to you, Dominic.”

“I don’t know,” I admit, the frustration boiling under my skin. “But if I had seen it, I would’ve acted on it. You have to believe me.”

She takes a step back, crossing her arms. “Do I? Because right now, it feels like I’ve been fighting for you, for us, while you’ve been keeping secrets.”

“Eva, I didn’t know!” My voice rises, sharper than I intend, but the doubt in her eyes cuts deeper than any betrayal.

She shakes her head, her walls slamming into place. “I need time to think. I can’t—” Her voice breaks. “I can’t do this right now.”

I watch her retreat to the guest room, the door clicking softly behind her. The silence of the penthouse swallows me whole. I sink onto the couch, her phone still in my hand, the email glaring at me like an accusation.

Someone in my company knew. They saw the cracks before they became fissures, and they said nothing. Or worse—they let it happen.

And now Eva’s trust in me is another casualty of this war.

I run a hand through my hair, my mind racing. If there’s any hope of salvaging this—my company, my relationship, everything—I need answers. And I need them now.

As I pick up my phone to call Adrian, one thought consumes me:

The cracks are deeper than I ever imagined, and if I don’t seal them fast, everything will crumble.

The guest room door is shut, but the space feels colder than it should. The rift between Eva and me is no longer a crack; it’s a canyon. And I don’t know how to bridge it.

The email from Adrian’s team sits open on my phone, taunting me with its implications. Someone warned me—warned the company—months before Conrad made his first move. Someone tried to protect what I’ve spent my entire life building, and I ignored them.

But it doesn’t make sense. I don’t miss things like this. I’ve built my reputation on vigilance, on outmaneuvering everyone in the room. So how did this slip past me?

My grip tightens on the phone. Maybe it didn’t.

“Adrian,” I say into the phone, my voice low.

He picks up on the first ring. “Dominic. I was about to call you. We’ve isolated the metadata on the email Eva found.”

I glance at the closed door again before moving to my desk. “What did you find?”

“The email came from inside Kane Enterprises,” Adrian says. “But here’s where it gets interesting—the sender isn’t in our employee database. Whoever sent this wasn’t a mid-level analyst. They’re a ghost.”

My stomach tightens. “So someone planted the email?”

“Looks that way. And if I had to guess, it was meant to misdirect. Whoever sent it wanted you to see it, but they didn’t expect it to come up now. It’s like they were setting the stage for something else.”

Adrian’s words hang heavy in the air. A trap. This wasn’t an oversight; it was deliberate.

“What about the recipient address?” I ask.

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