Chapter 28: Drake’s Realization
Drake Hawthorne had always prided himself on staying two steps ahead, on orchestrating the perfect moves in the ruthless game of power and control. But today, for the first time in years, he found himself outplayed. The moment Harry stepped into his office with news of Penny's ousting, the familiar thread of cold anger started to coil in Drake's chest.
Sitting at his massive oak desk, his gaze fixed on the glittering New York skyline, Drake's hands tightened into fists as Harry delivered the details.
"Mila set her up," Harry said, his voice low, as if bracing for Drake's reaction. "She fed Penny false information. The Dubai deal was a trap, and Penny walked right into it. Mila didn't just outmaneuver Penny—she outmaneuvered both of us."
The words hit like a punch to the gut. Drake's jaw clenched, and the tightness in his chest grew. Mila had been playing him—letting him believe he had the upper hand, feeding him false leads, and watching from a distance as he unknowingly fell deeper into her web. The betrayal stung. He had trusted Penny to be a reliable asset in his strategy to undermine Mila and take control of Morgan Enterprises, but now Penny was gone, exposed and discarded like a piece of collateral damage. And he, Drake Hawthorne, was left vulnerable.
He could feel Harry's eyes on him, waiting for the inevitable eruption of anger. And part of Drake wanted nothing more than to rage, to lash out at how easily he had been manipulated. Mila had turned the tables, and she had done it with surgical precision—just as he should have expected from her.
"She outsmarted us," Drake muttered, barely able to contain the heat simmering in his chest. "I underestimated her."
Harry nodded, the tension in the room palpable. "What's the next move, Drake? Do we retaliate?"
Drake's first instinct was to say yes, to dive headfirst into a counterattack, to pull every string he had left and make Mila pay for outplaying him. But as the anger simmered, something else began to stir beneath the surface. Something he had been suppressing for too long. Mila's brilliance, her ability to anticipate and execute with such cold precision, didn't just anger him—it fascinated him. It drew him in like a moth to a flame, and as much as he wanted to fight it, there was no denying it now.
Drake's gaze drifted to the skyline, the sprawling city that had always been his playground, his battlefield. But now, for the first time in his career, he wasn't thinking about victory, about conquest. He was thinking about her—the woman who had bested him, the woman who had been his rival and was now something much more complicated.
He leaned back in his chair, the weight of the situation pressing down on him. The game had changed. What started as a strategic power play had evolved into something else, something far more dangerous. His feelings for Mila had crept up on him, subtle at first, growing with each interaction, each sharp exchange. He had spent weeks trying to deny it, to tell himself that this was just another deal, just another opponent. But the truth was staring him in the face now, undeniable.
He admired her. Respected her. Wanted her.
"Drake?" Harry prompted, pulling him from his thoughts.
Drake didn't answer immediately, his mind racing through the events of the past few months. He had come into this merger with the goal of absorbing Morgan Enterprises, of adding another empire to his family's legacy. But along the way, Mila had become more than just a business adversary. She had become an obsession—someone he couldn't stop thinking about, even when she was actively working against him. And now, after she had bested him in such a public, humiliating way, his feelings were even more conflicted.
How could he retaliate when, deep down, part of him didn't want to defeat her?
"I can't just retaliate," Drake said quietly, almost to himself. He could see Harry's confusion out of the corner of his eye, but he didn't elaborate. The problem wasn't that he didn't know how to strike back. It was that part of him didn't want to. Mila wasn't just any opponent—she was his equal, in every sense of the word. And now that she had shown just how ruthless and brilliant she could be, Drake found himself even more drawn to her.
His mind replayed every interaction with her—the sharp, biting words, the tension that had simmered between them at every turn, and the moment they had kissed. That kiss, intense and charged with everything they hadn't said to each other, had been a turning point. He had been trying to fight the pull ever since, but it was useless now.
He turned to Harry, finally speaking with a clarity that had been missing for weeks. "This isn't just about the merger anymore. I need to talk to her."
Harry blinked, caught off guard by the shift in Drake's tone. "Talk to her? You think she's going to sit down and have a conversation after what just happened?"
Drake's lips twisted into a half-smile, a dark glint in his eyes. "She'll talk to me. She's probably expecting me to come at her with both barrels. But that's not what I'm going to do."
For a moment, Harry said nothing, trying to gauge where this new plan was going. "So... what are you going to do?"
Drake stood up, pacing toward the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked Wall Street. He stared down at the bustling city below, his thoughts far from the usual corporate warfare that had defined his life. "I'm going to be honest with her," he said, the words almost foreign to him. "I'm done playing games."
The admission surprised even Drake. He had never been one to lay his cards on the table. He thrived on manipulation, on outmaneuvering his opponents before they even knew they were playing. But with Mila, the usual tactics didn't work. She wasn't someone who could be outplayed or controlled. She had proven that time and time again.
No, if Drake wanted to salvage anything from this, if he wanted a chance at whatever strange connection had formed between them, it would have to be on her terms. For once, he would have to put aside the Hawthorne legacy and the endless pursuit of dominance.
It was a risk, a far greater one than any corporate play he had ever made. But as Drake stood there, staring out at the city, he knew it was a risk worth taking. The merger, the power, the legacy—it all seemed so distant now, compared to the pull he felt toward Mila.
"She outplayed me," Drake murmured, almost to himself. "And that's why I can't let this end here."
Harry shook his head, clearly skeptical. "And what if she doesn't want to talk? What if she's done with all of this?"
Drake turned, his expression resolute. "She's not done. Not yet."
The game had changed, but Drake wasn't out of it yet. And now, more than ever, he knew that his next move wouldn't be about business. It would be about her.
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