Page 54 of The Founder's Power

Here, I am just a man with a laptop, a mug of terrible coffee, and the love of the most extraordinary woman I’ve ever known.

And that’s enough.

Hell, that’s everything.

* * *

The second venture is mine,a small-scale consultancy. It’s quiet, focused, and almost deliberately under the radar. Not empire-building. Empowerment. I don’t want headlines. I want to make an impact. I take on one client at a time, startups run by people who remind me of who I used to be before ego took the wheel.

Isabelle helps with the branding. She designs the logo. She names it.

Foundry.

For what you create in the fire.

I never would’ve thought of that, and now it’s ours.

People still call me “Mr. Kincaid” sometimes, like they expect the steel-eyed executive with the empire behind him, but I’m not him anymore. I’m not chasing shadows in the shape of power.

I’m building with Isabelle. She’s not beside me. She’s not my shadow. She’s beside me, and the irony is, now that I’ve let go of the need to win at all costs, I’ve never felt more like I’ve already won.

I glance over at her as she stretches across the table to grab her notebook, and the collar of my shirt slips from her shoulder.

My shirt.

She’s been wearing it all morning—bare legs, paint on her fingers, sunlight in her hair. It hits me all over again how much she doesn’t belong to my world, and how much I never want to leave hers.

She catches me staring and arches a brow. “You know,” she says lightly, scribbling something in the margin of a grant proposal, “you used to terrify people.”

“Still do,” I murmur, not looking up from my screen.

She snorts. “Please. You’re drinking cinnamon coffee from a chipped mug and helping me sort art submissions. The only thing scary about you right now is how neatly you rewired that lamp.”

I glance up. “Are you mocking my domestic transformation?”

She shrugs. “You used to be untouchable. Cold. The kind of man who made interns cry in elevators.”

I set my laptop aside and lean back in the chair. “Only the ones who deserved it.”

She laughs, a low melodic sound that winds through my chest like a fuse. “And now?” she teases, standing slowly, her notebook forgotten. “You’re barefoot in a studio loft helping me plan an arts gala.”

She walks toward me with that look, the one that’s all amusement and challenge and heat beneath the surface.

I reach out and catch her wrist gently, pulling her between my legs. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Her voice softens. “No,” she says, brushing her fingers along my jaw. “It’s not. It’s just surprising.”

I kiss the inside of her wrist then her palm. Then lower.

She inhales, just slightly. “You still scare me sometimes,” she whispers.

I look up at her. “Why?”

“Because I never know what I’ll feel next when I’m with you.”

I rise to my feet in one slow, deliberate motion, and she’s suddenly small in front of me, her back pressing lightly against the edge of the table.

I don’t rush. I never do with her.

---