I’m shaking, barely breathing, but I force my gaze up. The look in his eyes is grounding, pulling me back from the edge. There’s something in them that makes everything about him confusing, but somehow it brings me back to life, and I glare at him as anger crashes through me, hot, desperate. The fear cracks, and words I haven’t spoken in years rip from my throat, raw and jagged.
“Don’t. Ever. Grab me again.”
The silence that follows is unbearable. My voice sounds foreign to my own ears, broken and rasping, but real.
He blinks, expression flickering from surprise to something softer, almost reverent. His hand falls away instantly, like my words burned him.
I don’t wait. I stumble past him, heart hammering, lungs tearing for air, shoving through the bathroom door into the hall.
I don’t look back. I can’t. But even as I flee, I feel it—his eyes still on me, tethering me to him.
My heart pounds so violently it hurts.
FIVE
ALEXANDER
The numbers blur across the screen—projected profits, investment returns, quarterly forecasts. All neat, precise, dependable. My approval is the final stamp that turns numbers into movement, millions into reality. Clean, efficient. Like clockwork.
I lean back in my leather chair, the skyline spread out beyond the glass walls. The city hums faintly below, a reminder of noise I’m far above. It’s always been easy for me to compartmentalize—work in its box, life in another, emotions locked away in a place so deep they may as well not exist.
At least, until him, Lucas.
His voice still lingers in my head, softer than I imagined, raw like it had been scraped from somewhere he’d buried for years. The way his lips shaped words he wasn’t supposed to give me, the shock in his eyes when they slipped free. I’ve replayed it every night since the auction, every time I close my eyes. I should have dismissed it, the way I dismiss everything that doesn’t matter. But I can’t.
I don’t want to.
A sharp knock cuts through the thought. Ashley steps inside, a slim stack of folders balanced in her arms. She always moves quietly, as though mindful not to disrupt me. That’s why I keepher; she doesn’t take up space. She’s been my personal assistant for years, even before I got my Job as the CFO for Pavel Investment.
“Mr. Petrov,” she says softly, setting the folders down. “Quarterly projections for Pavel Investments. And the updated portfolio analysis for the Daltons’ acquisition. The board meeting is set for Thursday at ten.”
I flip through the papers without seeing a single figure. None of it matters. Not compared to the image still haunting me.
My jaw flexes.
“Anything else?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says carefully, and something shifts in her tone. “I found out more about Lucas.”
Finally.
I straighten in my chair, the sterile numbers forgotten. “Go on.”
She flips open her smaller notebook. “He’s been Deaf since he was fifteen. It happened suddenly. No one knows the exact cause—he doesn’t talk about it. And mute, too. From what I gathered, he never speaks.”
Except he did with me…That night in the bathroom, he forced words out. Why me? Why then?
Ashley continues, “His mother lives in a trailer park in Connecticut. She had him when she was still a teen. No one knows who his father is. He cut ties with her after he turned eighteen.” She pauses, then glances at me before adding, “Though, I did hear he still sends her half of his income every month. Nobody knows why.”
Half of it? Why?
Ashley hesitates, then goes on, her voice lower. “I spoke to one of his coworkers. She said Lucas doesn’t like being touched… at all. She thinks he might have been abused as a child, judging by how he reacts sometimes.”
My chest tightens. That look in his eyes at the bathroom after I had grabbed him … it wasn’t just hesitation. It was recognition. Fear carved into muscle memory. Did I make it worse for him?
“Anything else?” My voice comes out sharper than intended.
Ashley shakes her head. “No. Nothing significant.”
