Weakness. Sentiment. Distraction.
But Evelyn didn’t understand.
Arden wasn’t a weakness.
She wasn’t someone to control or protect. She was a force—untamed, uncompromising.
And God help him…
He wanted to follow where she led even if it meant setting fire to the rules he’d built his life around.
The night wasn’t over.
But, he knew hiring Arden Rivers was never about talent.
It was about inviting fire into his world and hoping he could survive the burn.
She wasunlike anything he’d ever seen. And he had watched her more than once.
She moved through the room with quiet certainty.
Every step, every gesture—fluid.
Not the polished ghosts that haunted the club, swirling aged whiskey and pretending wealth made them untouchable.
She was alive.
He stayed in the shadows, watching.
Consuming her. Every detail. Every breath.
The way her dark hair caught the low light.
The way those blue eyes swept the room: alert, assessing.
She wasn’t playing their game.
She was studying it.
It seemed impossible she was real.
When he’d first seen her, it was just a flicker. A moment.
Something inside him had snapped awake.
Now,watching her move with quiet authority, the pull in his chest returned—tight, undeniable.
She didn’t belong here. That was obvious.
Yet… she did.
Not because she blended in.
Because she didn’t.
She wasn’t carved from the same cold marble as the elite.
She wasn’t born to this place.
