But it didn’t.
Because Arden wasn’t theirs.
She was his.
Dan’s theatrics were forgettable. Penny’s glitter-coated charm was just noise.
But Gideon?
Gideon was the rot. Slick with confidence. All control and shadows and lingering looks, pretending that gave him power.
Pretending he could keep her safe.
He couldn’t.
No one could.
When she laughed,he shattered inside.
Her laugh—his laugh—rising from her like smoke through stained glass, almost otherworldly.
God, how she glowed.
Even here, surrounded by dull-eyed people who didn’t see her the way he did, she radiated that heat. That burn.
And still… she let them touch her. Let them fold her into their shallow world.
It made him sick.
Because they didn’t know the truth of her. The damage she carried. The sharp, jagged edges she kept hidden beneath her calm. The fire beneath her skin didn’t flicker. It waited.
He knew.
He had studied her like scripture.
The way she worried her lip when she wasn’t sure how much to reveal.
The glance over her shoulder, automatic, every time she left a building.
The slight tension in her jaw when someone got too close.
Gideon didn’t seethose things. He wasn’t paying attention.
But he always paid attention.
And now? He waited.
The trap was set.
They hadn’t heard it snap yet.
They thought this was a game.
They were wrong.
She wasn’t theirs to parade around in lace and leather and smug conversation. She wasn’t some prize to be won in a bar game or some mystery to be solved by a man like Blackwell.
She was fire.His Little Fire.
