Chapter 64

Richard’s hand tightened around Elena’s waist the moment the word left her mouth.

“…Good girl.”

Before she could react, he kissed her again.

This time, there was no teasing argument left between them. Elena sank back against the cool sheets as Richard drew her closer, the warmth of his body contrasting sharply with the silk beneath her.

After a moment, he slowed and looked at her.

“Nervous?”

His voice was low, but the question itself was serious.

Elena looked up at him. The playfulness from earlier had faded, and for once she didn’t try to make a joke out of it.

“…I trust you.”

Richard held her gaze for a long moment before leaning down to kiss her again.

After that, neither of them said much.

The night carried them past a boundary neither could pretend they hadn’t crossed.

Much later, the bedroom had finally gone quiet.

Richard lowered his head against the side of Elena’s neck. “How are you?”

Elena ran her fingers lazily through his hair. “I’m okay. Although I was planning to work out tonight, and you completely ruined that.”

Richard laughed softly. “Sorry. Though, to be fair, this wasn’t exactly on my schedule either.”

Elena rolled her eyes and shifted onto her side. “Still your fault.”

Richard settled against the headboard, then reached over and pulled her back into his arms.

“You spent all evening calling me Uncle Richard and making jokes about my age.”

His lips brushed her ear, and Elena immediately tried to push him away.

“Move. You’re too hot.”

The room was actually perfectly cool. Now that everything had settled down, the heat was already fading.

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Richard knew that too.

Instead of letting go, he tightened his arm around her.

“You weren’t complaining when you called me honey.”

Elena’s face warmed again. “If I’d known you’d never shut up about it, I wouldn’t have said it.”

Richard looked amused. “You didn’t seem to mind at the time.”

Elena pressed her lips together, trying not to smile.

“…Fine. I liked it.”

The admission embarrassed her enough that she immediately hid half her face against his chest. Her arms slipped around his waist as she listened to the steady beat of his heart.

The bedroom grew quiet again. Warm light from the wall lamps filled the room while they stayed curled together, neither of them in any hurry to move. Richard slowly ran a hand along her back, gently massaging away some of the tension in her muscles.

Then his phone vibrated.

Richard glanced toward it before kissing Elena’s forehead. “I need to take this.”

“Mm…”

Her eyes remained closed, and she made no effort to move, still draped over him like a sleepy sloth.

Two seconds later, she seemed to remember something.

“Wait. Do you need me to go back to my room?”

“No. Stay here and rest.”

Richard reached for his phone, checked the screen, and answered. The warmth vanished from his voice almost instantly.

“Go ahead.”

The bedroom was so quiet that even without the call on speaker, Elena could make out parts of the conversation.

“The joint development project with the Nordic sovereign wealth fund has run into coordinated regulatory pressure from Brussels…”

“Several German officials and key members of the European Commission are tying approval to the new carbon-compliance framework. They’re implying that unless we surrender one percent of the underlying data-control rights as part of the exemption agreement, they’ll delay market authorization indefinitely…”

Elena’s eyes opened slightly.

Curious, she looked up at Richard.

The man holding her now looked nothing like the one who had been teasing her only minutes ago. His expression had become cold and unreadable, his attention entirely focused on the problem being laid out over the phone.

He was still sitting there with Elena tucked comfortably against him, yet when he spoke, his voice was all business.

“One percent of our control?”

Richard’s tone barely changed.

“Tell the executive directors in Frankfurt and Paris they’re not getting a single bit. They’ve spent too long enjoying the advantages of the old system while appointing themselves its referees. If they think they can take our technology without paying for it, they’re asking for too much.”

Elena blinked.

Richard continued as calmly as if he were discussing tomorrow’s weather.

“Inform the Nordic fund that if the European Commission hasn’t issued an unconditional exemption by midnight GMT this Friday, Sterling Consortium will indefinitely suspend the remaining five hundred billion euros in funding for the European Green Computing Grid.”

There was a brief silence on the other end.

“And the quantum core server clusters scheduled for Europe will be relocated to the new infrastructure park in Riyadh. The Middle East has considerably more appetite for green computing than the bureaucrats writing reports in Brussels.”

The person on the phone seemed to hesitate for half a second before answering.

“Understood, Chairman. I’ll submit our final notice to the relevant European authorities tonight. If they’re willing to risk Europe falling five years behind in next-generation AI supercomputing infrastructure, they can keep delaying the approval.”

“One more thing.”

Richard’s fingers moved absently over Elena’s shoulder as he spoke.

“Contact our U.S. trading desks and the major hedge funds we work with. If negotiations collapse on Friday, I want positions ready against the key German wind-energy and French digital-energy securities. The politicians playing games behind the scenes should understand that those games have a price.”

“Yes, sir.”

The call ended.

Silence returned to the bedroom.

Richard tossed the encrypted phone aside and looked down.

Elena was staring at him with enormous, sparkling eyes.

“I thought you were falling asleep.”

The coldness in his expression disappeared almost immediately. He smiled and gently squeezed her cheek.

“I still have work to do tonight, so I won’t be able to stay with you the whole time.”

Elena rested her chin against his chest and studied him with open fascination.

“You really do sound like a villain in a novel.”

Richard raised an eyebrow.

“One minute you’re moving hundreds of billions of euros around, and the next you’re talking about shorting half of Europe.” She shook her head in amazement. “I swear, normal people don’t have phone calls like that.”

Then she pushed herself up and gave him a quick kiss.

“But…” Elena added, “I don’t really understand half of what you just said, but it sounded very cool.”

Richard looked down at her.

“I’ll make sure you understand.”

Elena blinked. “Hmm?”

Richard suddenly shifted, leaning over her again with both hands braced beside her head.

Elena stared up at him.

“But the finance lesson can wait.”

The corner of his mouth lifted.

“I have something else in mind first.”

“…”