The door clicked shut behind her. Too loud. Too final.
She didn’t turn back.
Couldn’t.
But the sensation followed. Breath at her shoulder. Eyes just beyond reach. Someone just behind her.
A warning, carried in fragrance and silence.
She stepped back into the gilded world of The Blackwell Room where candlelight glinted off crystal and secrets softened in the shimmer of jazz.
She lifted her chin.
Set her shoulders.
She’d survived roses before.
She would again.
At least, that’s what she told herself.
The break room’slights buzzed overhead, sterile and cold. A poor disguise for the heat blooming from the rose on the counter.
Crimson, flawless. Deliberate.
He watched from the shadows.
Arden Rivers.
With tensionin her shoulders and a quiet unease dimming her usual light, she moved with unconscious grace. Always aware, even when she thought she wasn’t.
She froze at the sight of the rose.
Then the message.
The hitch in her breath.The way her lips caught and released—barely a flicker, but he saw it.
He always saw it.
A slow exhale left his lungs.
Not fear, never fear.
He didn’t want her frightened.
The rose was a gesture.
An acknowledgment.
Proof that someone had noticed her behind the mask.
That someone understood the armor she wore to navigate this temple of power and performance.
And more than that—someone admired it.
She’d felt it now,hadn’t she? That pull.
Not fear.
