POV: Chloe

The email landed on a Tuesday morning, buried in my inbox between a parking ticket and a coffee coupon.

Adams Corporation: Riverside Development Initiative, Request for Design Proposal.

I almost deleted it. We were a tiny firm. We didn’t get invites to billion-dollar bids, especially not from Adams Corporation—the city's biggest conglomerate, with Tristan’s name stamped at the top.

I should have known. I should have felt the trap snapping shut the second I saw his name.

Instead, I clicked open.

I froze at my desk for ten minutes, staring at the screen. Three lines down, typed in crisp font, was a sentence that turned my blood to...