Jane's POV
"Mr. George requested that Miss Williams be relocated to a different suite for her safety," William said. "He has also asked that security escort her to a more comfortable room while we process the request."
"Why would he do that?" I choked. "Who is this—" My voice was drowning in a tidal wave of confusion.
"We can discuss details privately," William said. "It is for your protection."
Celine's hand tightened around my arm. "Are you okay with this?" she asked bluntly.
I opened my mouth, then closed it. There was something in William's calm that said saying no would be harder than letting a stranger dictate the terms. I had no power left, not in this lobby with the whole world watching.
"Fine," I whispered. "For now."
They led me past the concierge and the lobby bar, through a quieter stretch of carpeted corridor, each step echoing. My legs felt like jelly. William's presence was all business, all watchful. I wanted to hate him on principle, he was a man-shaped interruption in my life but my fear was thicker and more immediate than fury.
They opened the door to the presidential suite. It was quieter than the rest of the hotel, like it swallowed noise to keep up appearances. As they ushered me inside, my stomach turned. The room was too large, too pale, every corner dressed to be admired by people who never slept in it.
And then I saw him.
He stood by the window as if he'd been carved there from the light itself. Tall. Impossibly composed. The air around him seemed to expect obedience. For a moment I couldn't name the sound in my head was it shock, hunger, fear? I only knew my pulse had decided to take a sprint.
He looked at me and like someone finally turned on a light in a dark room everything snapped into a cruel focus. Recognition flashed between us, a small, dreadful accord: we had been in the same place when things went wrong.
"Miss Jane," he said, and his voice was quiet, but it reached every corner of me. "I'm Allen George."
His name landed like a stone. I wanted to step back and hide, and instead my feet nailed me to the floor. The stranger's jaw in my memory had been the same. The man who took from me without asking was the man who had now offered me a suite.
My throat filled up with stories I couldn't tell. I should have been angry. I should have screamed. Instead I just shook my head, foolish and raw.
"H-how did you find me?" I managed.
He folded his hands like a man putting order into a chaotic room. "You stayed at one of my hotels," he said. "When William found your check-in, he notified me. I asked my team to prepare this suite." He didn't sound like an apology. He sounded like someone stating a problem and its solution.
"Why?" I whispered. "Why would a man I don't know—why are you involved?"
His eyes softened in a way that made my chest loosen and tighten at once. "Because someone set us up that night, and I want to know why. Because you were hurt. Because you're pregnant." He didn't fumble for words. He said it like he had known a long time.
Pregnant. The word was a fist. I pressed both hands to my stomach the way mothers do when they first feel a flinch. The hotel hummed around us. Outside, life went on. Inside, a stranger had entered my ruined moment and made it more complicated.
"You can help me," he said, "or you can refuse. But I can't let what happened go unchecked."
My body wanted to refuse. My mind wanted to run. But there was a voice in me that had learned to keep fighting—quietly, however it could.
"I want the footage," I said. It came out like a small verdict. "I want to know who did this."
He didn't flinch. "No, Jane. I know who did it."
The air thinned. "You… know?"
Celine stepped in, her voice sharp. "Then say it. Stop speaking in riddles."
"You won't want to hear this," he said quietly. "It's worse than you think."
"I don't care how bad it is," I shot back. "You tell me who destroyed my life."
"Jane—"
"I don't want your sympathy, I want a name!"
He looked at me for a long moment, like he was measuring how much truth I could take before I shattered.
Finally, he exhaled. "Your husband planned it."
The world tilted. My breath caught in my throat. Every muscle in me tensed like I'd been hit.
"No," I said. It was automatic, childish. "He—he couldn't."
Allen's tone softened, but it didn't waver. "He did. He arranged the setup, the drugs, the cameras. Everything. You were the collateral."
I stumbled back a step. Celine grabbed my arm, but the noise in my head drowned her out. The room was too big and too bright, and all I could see was my ex-husband's face twisting into a smirk I'd missed for years.
Allen didn't move toward me. He just watched. "You deserved to know," he said.
I laughed, broken, humorless. "Deserved? That's a strange word for someone whose life just ended twice in the same year."
He didn't argue.
For a moment, no one spoke, then, as if the silence had teeth, I whispered, "What do you want from me, Allen?"
"Your help," he said. "I'm going after whoever's still covering for him. But I can't do it without you."
The irony stung. The man who'd unknowingly been part of my ruin was now offering me a hand to rebuild.
"I don't trust you," I said flatly.
He nodded once. "You don't have to. Just don't run this time."
Something in his voice—steady, almost kind—made my chest ache. I hated that it did.
I turned away from him, staring out the glass at the city that had already eaten me alive once. "You want revenge," I said. "I just want peace."
"Then help me finish this," he replied.