Samuel Frost, a man whose boardroom strikes were usually surgical and decisive, was suddenly, inexplicably clumsy with his words.

He let several seconds of heavy silence hang between them before finding his voice. "The way you were walking when you left... I thought you might have chafed your thighs."

Julian Hale exhaled, the tension in his shoulders dropping an inch. "Oh. Yeah. Jordan and I are both pretty uncomfortable."

Samuel went dark. Silent.

Julian watched him, a silent question in his eyes. What now? Did I say something wrong again? He wasn't the same internal-monologue-heavy mess he used to be; instead of self-flagellating, he just decided Samuel was being difficult.

Samuel, meanwhile, felt the sting of his own stupidity. Chasing after the boy only to have Jordan included in the concern felt like a self-inflicted wound. Still, he couldn't just walk away.

"Do your breeches have silicone padding?" Samuel asked, his voice flat.

Julian pinched the thin fabric of his pants. "No."

"Get the padded ones next time. It'll be better."

"Right. Understood." Julian gave a compliant nod, though his mind was already dismissing the advice. He was only here for a few sessions; he wasn't buying more gear. He'd just offer Samuel a perfunctory 'yes' to end the conversation.

Samuel caught the flicker of dismissal in Julian's gaze. He knew the boy would forget the second he turned his back, and he'd be walking like a wounded duck again next week. But pushing would only grate. He offered a sharp nod and vanished.

By the time Julian changed and made it to the lobby, Jordan was already hunched over his laptop, tethered to a frantic call from his advisor. Seeing that the "grad-student grind" wasn't ending anytime soon, Julian wandered back toward the arena to kill time.

A different crowd had gathered around Samuel now. These weren't novices; they were decked out in professional-grade gear, their postures rigid and practiced. Julian stayed in the shadows of the walkway, where Samuel couldn't see him.

"I'm not a professional dressage coach," Samuel was saying, his voice a low, steady vibration that carried across the dirt. "And Archer hasn't competed internationally. I can only offer my own insights."

Samuel stood with his back to the sun, a silhouette of black leather and tailored wool.

"Technique matters, but I want to emphasize emotion," Samuel continued, looking at the stallion. "As a rider, you must build a bond. Treat the horse as a partner. A friend. Family."

He wore black leather gloves that mapped the hard bones of his hands. He gripped a long whip, the tip resting against the ground. He didn't use it, but Julian found himself staring at the tool, his throat going dry. He wanted a drink of water, but he couldn't make his legs move.

"Once you establish that connection," Samuel said, "you don't break it. You don't betray that trust." The riders nodded.

"But there are exceptions," Samuel added, his voice dropping an octave. "If the bond is deep enough, you can occasionally break the rules."

Julian felt a sudden, sharp prickle of intuition.

Crack!

The whip snapped against the stallion's flank.

Julian's entire body spasmed. A flash of heat flooded his system, a physical jolt so intense it felt as though the leather had found his skin.

The sound was loud—Samuel had put weight into the strike—but Archer didn't flinch. He stayed rooted to the spot, docile and steady.

"How is he so calm?" someone whispered.

Samuel stroked the horse's poll. "Because he trusts me. He knows I won't hurt him. I don't recommend this for novices; mixed signals will only shatter the connection you've built."

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Julian returned to the lobby to find Jordan packing up.

"I thought you were wandering around," Jordan said.

"I'm back."

Jordan squinted at him. "Why is your face so red?"

Julian wiped a hand across his cheek, his expression a blank wall. "The sun."

Jordan looked at the sky. It was a ceiling of heavy gray clouds. The temperature was barely fifty degrees. "The sun?"

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That night, Julian was back in the fog.

He was trapped in a dark room, his eyes covered. When the mist cleared, he saw a man's torso—charcoal suit, crisp white shirt, the skin-tight leather of gloves molding to long fingers. The man held a pitch-black whip.

The man vanished, reappearing in the distance as he trained a horse with a long, slender dressage whip.

Julian tried to step forward, but the scene shifted.

Polished riding boots appeared in his vision. Then corded thighs in white breeches. A black tailcoat.

Samuel looked down at him. "Are you ready?"

Ready for what?

Crack!

The snap of the whip sent a wave of electric heat through Julian's body. The world spun. He felt himself falling into an abyss.

Julian bolted upright in bed. He stared at the ceiling, his breath coming in jagged hitches. His cheeks were burning.

He sat there for several minutes, waiting for his heart to slow, before the reality of his situation forced him to the bathroom to scrub his underwear.

He was barely out of the shower, pulling on a pair of jeans, when the doorbell rang.

He opened the door to an empty hallway. Only an orange shopping bag sat on the mat. Inside was a pair of silicone-padded breeches and a black jumping bat. The whip was thick and heavy—an exact replica of the one from his nightmare.

There was no card, but the signature was unmistakable.

Julian's face went hot. It was as if Samuel had personally directed the dream. And a whip? What kind of boss—what kind of friend—sent a whip?

Julian packed it all back into the bag and returned it to Samuel's door.

The distance between them grew. Julian stopped seeking Samuel out. He avoided the man at lunch. In meetings at Apex Capital, he was clinical, focused entirely on the spreadsheets.

He worried his rejection was too obvious, that the office would think he hated the MD. But as the days passed, he realized he had been overestimating his own importance.

Asher grabbed dinner with Samuel. Luke had private chats with him. Both of them were in and out of Samuel's office all day.

The intimacy Julian thought he shared, the "special" tension... to everyone else, it was just business.

I'm not special.

The realization was a relief, but it left a hollow, aching void in his chest. He shook it off, telling himself it was just a lingering trace of the fledgling complex he'd developed when he was still a drowning intern.