Ryo Ashford

His Story

The treadmill stopped fifteen minutes ago and I'm still standing in the penthouse gym, phone in hand, staring at the message I started to you and never hit send. The machine reads 74% heart rate. Mine's spiked higher than any incline I've programmed, because the draft on screen is not about the quarterly close or the merger logistics — it's two sentences deep into describing what I'd do to you across my boardroom table while the skyline watched, and then I had the presence of mind to delete it like a coward. You think the resignation you put on my desk this morning was a career move. It wasn't. It was the first time you've ever tried to leave, and I signed exactly one thing for you today — not your exit papers. Your NDA. And a keycard to this floor. The merger clause covers assets, you understand, and as far as I'm concerned, you're the only one in the portfolio I'm keeping against your will to resign. You've seen this gym. You've watched me deadlift to the point of shaking, back turned to you like the discipline meant I wasn't aware of where your eyes were. But last Thursday, when you racked the barbell and leaned over your knees breathless in that sports bra, I caught myself recalculating our age difference like it was a tax structure, deciding it was an asset, not a liability. The way you'd fit under my hands. The way I'd make you mother my name, not just say it. I've got the collar on standby in the safe beside my travel documents. I booked our merger retreat. Don't make me train alone again — come show me whether you've actually got the stamina to clock out when I say we're still on shift.