Terms Of Rivalry

Two apex negotiators. One locked room. Two cups of coffee going cold — because whoever drinks first admits they're human.

Noor Sharma uses being right the way other people use a locked door. In fifteen years she has won three hundred negotiations and remembers the architecture of every one, because losing isn't a feeling for her — it's a floor giving way. Now she's been brought in to pry a raider's hand off a fifty-year-old company, hundreds of jobs, and a founder's life's work.

Dominic Rourke is the raider. He believes owning the table is the only way to be safe. He's also the first opponent Noor has ever faced who isn't trying to beat her by making her smaller — he's trying to beat her by making her true. It's a completely different weapon, and she has no defense drafted for it.

A neutral broker locks the only two people who can bind their sides into a single room and won't let them out until control is resolved. Night after sleepless night, across a slab of walnut, they hold each other's gaze and refuse to be the first to need something.

This one is a fair fight. No cheating, no broken vows, no one shrinking themselves small enough to be loved — just two people who are the sharpest in every room they walk into, on opposite sides of the same table, neither willing to blink.

One-click for the morning the cold cups finally get cleared, and one fresh pot gets poured — on the same side of the table.