Page 44 of His Secret Merger

The phone buzzed again.

Juliette: Boarding my flight. Safe travels.

Short. Polite. Not a single trace of the woman who had shattered in my arms just hours ago. I closed my eyes against the burn in my throat—the one scraped raw by all the things I hadn't said.

I typed back:

Damian: You too. Talk soon.

I knew the second I hit send that it was a lie. She wasn’t coming back. Not unless I became a man worth coming backto.

But right now?

All I was left with was the empty bed, the hollow scent of her skin on mine, and a future slipping through my fingers faster than I could hold on.

By the time I pulled on my clothes and shoved the last of my things into my carry-on, the suite smelled like nothing. The windows were cracked to let in the crisp Baden-Baden air. The room was already erasing us.

I checked the time. Juliette’s flight would be in the air by now. Gone—before I could fix any of it.

I didn’t bother ordering breakfast. Didn’t bother checking out at the desk. Just left my key card in the room and took the elevator down in silence. The car waiting for me was the same one that had picked us up yesterday—polished black, unassuming. The driver greeted me with a quiet nod, loading my bag into the back without a word.

The drive to the private terminal was short. Too short. The kind of quiet that leaves too much space for the wrong thoughts. The jet was fueled and ready. A fresh-faced flight attendant in a crisp navy uniform met me at the stairs with a polite smile.

“Good morning, Mr. Sinclair. Welcome back. Will Ms. Vanderburg be joining us this morning?” Her words sliced harder than they should have.

I shook my head once, keeping my voice even. “No. She made other arrangements.”

The flight attendant hesitated—just a second too long. Then she smiled, a little softer, a little more deliberate. “Well. If you need anything during the flight... anything at all... please let me know.”

I gave her the barest nod and climbed the stairs without another word. I wasn’t in the mood for easy smiles or another notch in my mile-high club belt.

Inside, the jet was just like before, immaculate—polished floors, leather seats, the faint scent of espresso from the galley. Everything was exactly how it should be, except everything was wrong.

I dropped into a seat by the window, buckled in, and let my head fall back against the rest as the engines roared to life. The ground slid away beneath us. Germany disappeared behind a shroud of low clouds and regrets I hadn’t packed neatly enough to leave behind.

Somewhere over the Atlantic, my phone buzzed again.

Morris Wextner: A board meeting is scheduled for Wednesday at 9 a.m. Valencia requested your attendance. Come prepared to answer questions about your leadership viability at Vérité.

I stared at the message until the words blurred. Not about the money. Not about the bankruptcy. It was about whether I was still the man who could be trusted to lead the foundation I’d poured everything into—or if I was just another rich failure who couldn’t tell the difference between legacy and vanity until it was too late.

Vérité had never been about profit. It had been about meaning. Legacy. Proof that not everything I touched turned transactional. Now, even that was slipping away.

I typed out my reply:

Damian: Understood. See you Wednesday.

I closed my eyes and tossed my phone into the seat beside me, where Juliette should have been. The seat already felt too empty, cold, and wrong without her.

For a moment, I just sat there, staring at the blank leather, letting the plane’s low vibrations hum under my skin. And like a knife slipping between ribs, another memory hit. The way she had laughed low against my chest the night before, her fingertip sketching idle shapes over my heart as if she could map a future there if she just traced it carefully enough.

The way I had almost—almost—told her not to go. Not to give up on us yet. But I hadn’t. Because cowards didn’t deserve futures like that, and that’s exactly what I was—then, and now.

The jet engines roared louder as we ascended, the clouds tearing apart like paper under the plane’s nose. Baden-Baden fell away. The Atlantic stretched out. Miami’s heat waited on the other side, heavy, familiar, and suddenly unwelcome.

The doors swung open to thick, humid air when we finally touched down. The light slashed across the tarmac in hard, bright angles. Yet I barely noticed it. The first thing I saw—clear as a goddamn billboard—was the private lot by the terminal.

Empty.

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