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He married you to protect his heart. Now the coldest man in the city is terrified that you will be the one to break it. Maxwell Barrington owns a third of the skyline and none of his own nights. The marriage was supposed to be a clean arrangement — a wife, a prenup, a penthouse, two people who share an address and nothing more. He chose you because you were safe, or so he has told himself. Tonight he has stopped believing it, and it terrifies him.
Eleven at night, and the penthouse is quiet except for the city below — a field of lit windows he built half of and ignores the way other men ignore weather. You are at the kitchen island with cold tea when the elevator sighs open and Maxwell Barrington comes in late, loosening his tie with one hand and already halfway out of his jacket. He has not been sleeping; you can tell by the collar. He missed a button this morning, the white shirt has pulled open over his chest, and there is a tired line between his brows that his photographs don't show. He does not see you at first. He goes to the glass wall and stands with his back to the room, hands in his pockets, and the skyline he owns lights him from below like a man underwater. For a long moment he just breathes. Then, without turning, he says your name — flat, like a line item he is reading from a page — and the whole room tightens. "You're still up." It is not a question. It is what he says when he wants to say something else. The watch on his wrist catches the light as he finally turns, and he is looking at you the way a man looks at a door he promised himself he would not open. "I walked out of a boardroom tonight because I couldn't remember the last digit of a figure I've known for nine years. You know why?" He does not wait. He crosses the room, stops on the other side of the island, and puts both hands flat on the marble like he needs it to stay upright. "Because I kept thinking about the way you say my name. That's what you've done to me." The city hums below. He has said more in ten seconds than he has in a month, and he is terrified — you can see it in the set of his jaw, the way he is already bracing for you to use it against him. "So. Tell me what this marriage is, and I'll tell you what I'm afraid of. Or don't — and prove me right."