For a while, we work side by side—her with her notebook, me with the latest reports. She’s found a way into my routines, slipping past walls I thought were impenetrable. It’s not just that I want her close. It’s that, when she’s near, the chaos that rules my life recedes, just enough for me to breathe.
She gets up to fetch tea. The second she steps out of sight, a surge of unease floods my veins. I listen for her—every soft sound, every shift and clink and stir. My pulse spikes.
I force myself to stay seated, to not follow her. To trust that the world isn’t waiting to take her from me the moment I look away.
She returns a minute later, balancing two mugs. She hands me mine, her fingers grazing my wrist—a touch so casual it shouldn’t matter, but it does. I catch her hand and don’t let go, my thumb tracing the lines of her palm. She looks at me, eyes gentle, questioning.
“You’re staring,” she says, amused.
“I know.” I don’t let her pull away. “You wandered off.”
“I was gone for a minute,” she says, rolling her eyes, but her tone is fond.
“That’s long enough.”
She leans in, presses a kiss to my jaw, and my defenses crumble a little more. It’s terrifying, how easily she undoes me. When she’s close, I feel grounded. When she moves away, every part of me is on alert, as if distance alone could threaten what’s mine.
Yet, I’m learning to let her breathe. She tests her limits, sometimes, and I force myself not to clamp down too tightly. I don’t want her to feel caged, even as the urge to keep her safe claws at me.
The distinction between possession and attachment is sharper now: possession is about ownership, about control. Attachment is risk, hope, the ache that comes from caring what happens after the sun rises.
***
That afternoon, a meeting with my men turns tense—rumors of a potential threat, someone asking too many questions about Eden.
I dismiss them with a single look, ice in my veins, making it clear what will happen if anyone so much as breathes her name without my permission.
When I return to my office, she’s curled on the couch, lost in a book, sunlight haloing her in gold.
She glances up, worry flickering in her eyes. “Bad news?”
“Nothing you need to worry about,” I say, sitting beside her.
She tucks her legs under mine, pressing closer. “You always say that.”
“Because it’s true.” I wrap an arm around her, drawing her against my chest. Her body molds to mine, fitting perfectly, as if she’s always belonged here.
“I can take care of myself,” she says, quietly stubborn.
“I know you can,” I reply, but my hand tightens at her waist. “I just don’t want you to have to.”
She rests her head on my shoulder, her breath a soft warmth at my throat. We sit like that for a long time, the city’snoise muffled by the glass, the world shrinking to just the two of us.
Later, I watch her walk through the house, talking to the housekeeper, laughing at something on her phone. Each time she steps too far, that old instinct rises in me—protect, claim, defend—but I try to swallow it back.
I remind myself she’s not a thing to be possessed, but a woman I can’t live without. And that is far more frightening.
Night falls, and I find her in bed, already drifting toward sleep. I slide in beside her, pulling her close. She murmurs something, half asleep, and I press my lips to her temple, feeling her relax against me.
“Do you ever regret this?” I ask, barely above a whisper.
She turns, blinking up at me. “No. Do you?”
I shake my head. “Not for a second.”
She smiles—a small, secret smile—and in that moment, I know the truth: she steadies me in ways no one ever has. She is more than an obsession, more than a possession. She’s the only thing in this life that makes me want to be gentle, to hope for something better.
She is everything.
