“What the hell are you wearing?”
I blinked. “These are my night clothes—I…”
Brain? Abandoned me.
Eyes? Accidentally dipped to his abs.
Hormones? Screaming in a choir.
Pull it together, Kiara. You’re not a teenager in a Wattpad fanfic.
He tilted his head, eyes narrowing like he was conducting a full visual scan. Probably trying to figure out which part of me was the crime scene—my red eyes, my Medusa hair, or the lace-trimmed red nightwear that was, yes, technically decent, but now suddenly screaming‘you forgot your shrug.’
“You call thoseclothes?” he asked in a deadpan voice, gaze glued to mine like heknew.
And there it was—the moment I realized I had hit peak mortification.
Standing barefoot. In sheer panic. At his door. At 3 a.m.
Spoiler: This was a terrible idea.
“I… couldn’t sleep,” I blurted, because apparently, my survival instinct had vanished too.
Manav raised an eyebrow, set his glass down, and leaned against the doorframe—arms crossed over his frustratingly bare chest. “And waking me up was the solution?”
“It’s all Elena’s fault,” I mumbled, fumbling for logic. “She had an emergency and left.”
“Elena?”
“The house staff.”
“She left?” He looked genuinely confused now.
“Yeah. Genius.”
“She took all of your seven million pillows with her, so now you can’t sleep?”
“Can younotbe a grumpy CEO for five seconds and just help a person in need?”
He shook his head, rubbing his temple. “You’re sleepwalking. Your room’s that way. Go back to bed, cheeseball.”
“I’m not sleepwalking!” I snapped. “I have a condition!”
He stopped mid-door-close. “A condition?”
I swallowed. “I… I can’t sleep alone.”
He stared. Blinked. Then stared again. “I’m sorry—what?”
“Ican’t sleep alone,” I said again, slower this time, face burning hotter than the sun. “It’s… a thing, okay?”
He just kept looking at me like I’d told him I was a vampire allergic to solitude. “You’re serious.”
“Yes, and I have a very important interview in the morning, so if you could stop playing questionnaire, I promise I won’t disturb your alien stock exchange meeting or whatever you're doing.”
He looked like he was debating whether to throw me out or throw himself off a cliff.
Then, finally, a sigh. A long, theatrical, ‘I-hate-my-life’kind of sigh.
