"You really put a kill-switch in the Emerald City files?" Dominic asked, his voice echoing through the grand foyer of Sterling Heights as he handed his keys to a waiting butler.
Ester stepped onto the polished marble floor, feeling the weight of the night finally start to settle in her bones. "I'm an architect, Dominic. I've spent five years watching Xavier take credit for my soul. I'd be a fool if I didn't have a digital insurance policy."
Dominic let out a low, appreciative whistle. He led her past a sweeping staircase toward a cozy, modern library filled with the scent of old books and expensive brandy. "I knew you were brilliant, but I didn't think you had that streak of cold-blooded vengeance in you. I like it. It suits the new you."
"It's not vengeance. It's a copyright protection," Ester replied, finally slipping his jacket off her shoulders. She felt exposed in her evening gown, but here, in the soft amber light of Dominic's home, she felt strangely safe. "If he had treated me like a partner or even just a human being, he would have had the keys. He chose the divorce. He chose the locks."
"Sit down, Ester. You look like you're about to collapse," Dominic said, gesturing to a deep velvet armchair. He walked over to a side table and poured two glasses of amber liquid. "Drink this. It's not champagne. It's something that will actually help you sleep."
Ester took the glass, her fingers brushing his. The brief contact felt like a spark of electricity. "What is it?"
"A very old, very expensive scotch. It tastes like woodsmoke and justice," Dominic teased, sitting on the edge of the desk facing her. "So, forty-eight hours? That's not a lot of time for a man like Xavier to realize his world is about to go dark."
"He won't realize it until he tries to upload the final structural load-bearing data to the city planning commission on Monday morning," Ester said, taking a sip. The liquid burned her throat in the best way possible. "By then, the servers will ask for a biometric override. My thumbprint or a 64-bit encrypted key that only I have."
Dominic leaned back, his eyes fixed on her with an intensity that made her heart skip. "And when he calls you? When he begs?"
"He won't beg. Not at first," Ester countered. "He'll threaten. He'll tell me he's going to sue me for every penny I don't have. He'll tell me I'm a thief. He's very predictable when he's scared."
"He can't sue you for what you own," Dominic said firmly. "I've had my team looking into the Blackwood Corp bylaws. You never signed over your intellectual property rights to the company. You only granted them a usage license during the term of your marriage. No marriage, no license."
Ester paused, the glass halfway to her lips. "Wait. How do you know that? I never told you the details of my contract."
Dominic smiled, that dark, knowing smile that made him look like a predatory king. "Ester, I've been trying to buy your contract out from under Xavier for three years. I've had spies in his legal department since he first took credit for your museum design in Singapore. I knew your contract better than he did."
"You were trying to buy me?" Ester felt a flush of something, anger? confusion? rise in her chest. "Like a piece of real estate?"
"Like a caged bird," Dominic corrected, his voice softening. "I wanted to give you the freedom to build whatever you wanted, without his name at the bottom of the page. But every time I made an anonymous offer to the board, Xavier blocked it. He knew you were his golden goose, even if he treated you like dirt."
Ester leaned her head back against the velvet, looking up at the high, ornate ceiling. "I feel so stupid. Everyone saw it. You saw it. The board saw it. Even Chloe probably saw it. Why was I the last one to realize I was being used?"
"Because you have a heart that sees the best in people, even when they're showing you their worst," Dominic said. He stood up and walked over to her, crouching down so he was at eye level. "But that ends tonight. Tomorrow, the world finds out who really designed the Emerald City. And more importantly, they find out who owns the Sterling Group's heart."
"Dominic, don't say things like that," Ester whispered, her eyes fluttering shut. "I just got divorced. I'm a mess. I don't even have a toothbrush."
"There's a suite upstairs stocked with everything you could ever need. Clothes in your size, your favorite skincare, even the specific brand of charcoal pencils you used to use in university," Dominic said, his voice a soothing hum.
Ester opened her eyes, startled. "You bought my pencils? The ones from Germany?"
"Cases of them," he admitted. "I told you, Ester. I've been waiting. I'm a very patient man when the prize is worth the wait."
The quiet of the library was suddenly shattered by the buzzing of a phone on the mahogany desk. It wasn't Dominic's phone. It was Ester's.
She looked at the screen. Xavier.
"He's fast," Dominic remarked, glancing at the caller ID. "The gala must have ended poorly for him."
Ester took a shaky breath and picked up the phone. She hit the speaker button.
"Ester! Where the hell are you?" Xavier's voice exploded through the room, sounding frantic and breathless. "I went to the guest room and your bag is gone. Did you steal the hard drive from my office? Answer me!"
Ester looked at Dominic, who gave her a reassuring nod.
"I didn't steal anything, Xavier," Ester said, her voice surprisingly steady. "I took what belonged to me. Which, as it turns out, is everything that makes your company worth a cent."
"You listen to me, you ungrateful bitch!" Xavier screamed. "The IT department just called. They can't access the core architectural files. They said there's some kind of ... of lock on the system. You unlock it right now, or I swear I'll have the police at your door for corporate sabotage!"
Ester felt a surge of adrenaline, a cold, sharp power she had never felt before. "The police? That's funny, Xavier. Because I'm currently sitting with a man who owns the police, the city council, and half the banks you owe money too."
There was a stunned silence on the other end of the line. The sound of heavy breathing was the only thing audible for a few seconds.
"Who?" Xavier finally hissed. "Who are you with?"
Dominic reached out, taking the phone from Ester's hand with a smirk. He brought it to his lips, his voice dropping into a chilling, lethal silk.
"She's with me, Xavier and I'd suggest you start looking for a very good bankruptcy lawyer, because in about ten minutes, the news is going to break that Sterling Group has just pulled all funding from every Blackwood project in the country."
Xavier's voice cracked. "Sterling? You can't do that! We have a contract!"
"Actually," Dominic chuckled, looking at Ester with eyes full of pride, "the contract says the funding is contingent on the Lead Designer remaining with the firm. And since you just kicked the Lead Designer out of your house in a navy-blue dress, you're in breach. Anything else you want to scream about before I block this number?"