Not fear.
Too blunt. Too crude.
Curiosity.
Laced with the faintest edge of doubt.
A question planted like a seed.
Who left this? Why?
He sawit in the way her smile wavered.
The slight hesitation in her hand as she wiped the bar.
Marco’s chatter couldn’t distract her.
Fatima’s laugh couldn’t shake what he’d left behind.
She carried it now—his mark, his connection.
Proof she felt it too. Even if she didn’t realize it yet.
And it wasn’t the first.
The rose had come before. Left in silence. Not yet understood.
The receipt was simply the next breath in the conversation he was building.
Quiet. Intentional. Escalating.
Each gesture pulling her closer.
The others didn’t see her. Not the way he did.
Marco, with his overeager gestures.
Fatima, with her soft charm.
They basked in her light without understanding it.
And Blackwell with his polished control and carefully measured attention,he only saw the surface.
They couldn’t see what burned beneath her skin.
But he could.
He saw the fire.
The strength forged from whatever pain she kept buried.
The quiet defiance in how she carried herself.
She wasn’t made for cages.
She wasn’t made for pedestals.
She was meant to blaze.
