Adira's POV
The folder sat on my desk for two days before I finally opened it.
Part of me wanted to throw it in the shredder. I didn't like the way Jayden Craig unsettled me, the way his presence felt both invasive and... safe. Dangerous combination.
But curiosity gnawed at me until I couldn't resist.
The first pages were standard partnership proposals: CraigTech's resources, technology integration, expansion models. I skimmed them, unimpressed. I had my own strategies.
Then I flipped deeper. And froze.
An old contract. Dated three years ago. The year I almost lost everything.
Back then, I'd been desperate. Investors had pulled out. Banks had closed their doors. I had nearly shut down the second branch of The Study Spot. But at the last moment, a private fund stepped in under a shell name I didn't recognize: D.A. Capital.
I remembered signing those papers with trembling hands, grateful but blind. I never knew who had saved me.
Until now.
Because in the corner of the contract, embossed faintly in the header, was a name I'd seen only recently.
Craig Holdings.
My chest tightened. "No," I whispered. "It can't be..."
I shoved the papers back into the folder, heart racing. Jayden Craig wasn't just circling my company. He had been in it all along.
But why hadn't he told me?
Jayden's POV
I knew she'd find it.
I knew the moment her eyes fell on that page, her breath would catch the way it always did when she realized she wasn't fully in control.
But I couldn't tell her everything yet. Not about D.A. Capital. Not about why I had hidden behind layers of shell companies.
She needed to see me not as a savior, but as a man who believed in her when no one else did.
So I waited.
Watched.
And when the time came, I would tell her the truth.
That it was me. Always me.
The boy she once told not to wait.
The man who had waited anyway.