He takes a slow, deliberate breath, his chest expanding. He holds my gaze, his eyes boring into mine, willing me to follow as he exhales slowly.
“Again,” he orders. “In… and out. Match me, Kinsley. Right now.”
He breathes again, and this time my body, desperate for an anchor, for a command to follow, obeys. A shuddering, ragged gasp of air finally enters my lungs. It hurts, but it’s there.
“Good,” he says, his voice unwavering. “Again. In… and out. That’s it. Slow it down. I’ve got you.”
We stay like that for what feels like an eternity; him kneeling before me, his hands holding my face, forcing me to match his rhythm. He is not soothing my panic, he is conquering it. He is overriding my body’s chaos with his own unshakable control. Slowly, miraculously, the frantic hammering in my chest begins to slow. The black spots recede, the room stops spinning. The storm inside me doesn’t disappear but it recedes, bowing to a greater force. He is my peace.
When my breathing is finally even, my body limp with exhaustion, he loosens his grip. His thumbs stroke my cheekbones, wiping away the tears I didn’t even realize were falling.
He just witnessed the ugliest, most broken part of me, and he didn’t flinch. He didn’t run, he took control. He dominated the chaos that has haunted my entire life and in this moment, that control feels like the only safety in the world.
He stands, looking down at me, a disheveled, ruined thing on the floor of his dead uncle’s study. Then, he extends a hand to me.
My body moves before my mind can object. I rise from the floor, my legs unsteady, and place my hand in his. His grip is firm, warm, an anchor not just in the vertigo of the last hour but in the chaos of my own mind.
He pulls me gently from the room, not back towards the chaos of the party but down a different, silent corridor. We enter a private elevator, the kind that requires a key card, and descend.
The ride is silent as I stare at our reflection in the polished brass walls. The girl in the emerald dress looks like a stranger—her eyes too wide, her face pale with shock. The man beside her looks like a god of the underworld; calm and possessive, leading his captured prize deeper into his domain.
The elevator opens not into a lobby but into a private, subterranean garage. A black sedan waits, the engine alreadyhumming. His security guard holds the door open for us. West helps me in before sliding in beside me, and the car pulls smoothly out into the cold city night.
“Where are we going?” I finally manage to ask, my voice a hoarse whisper.
“Somewhere quiet,” is all he says, his gaze fixed on the blur of city lights. His hand pulls mine into his lap, and we stay like that the whole way, with my insides swirling in butterflies.
He doesn’t take me back to his penthouse. Instead the car pulls into the private entrance of another skyscraper, one even more opulent and discreet than his own. We ride another private elevator, this one opening directly into a sprawling apartment. It’s not decorated like his penthouse. It’s minimalist, almost stark with vast empty spaces, polished concrete floors, and floor-to-ceiling windows that offer a breathtaking, panoramic view of the city. It feels less like a home and more like a private gallery, waiting for its first masterpiece to be installed.
West sheds his tuxedo jacket, tossing it onto a chair. He loosens his black bowtie and unbuttons the top two buttons of his shirt. He walks over to a sleek, integrated sound system and, with a few taps on his phone, a soft, melancholic piano piece fills the vast space.
He turns to me. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Kinsley,” he says, his voice devoid of any irony.
The words are so absurd that a choked, hysterical sound escapes my lips. It’s half laugh, half sob. “Valentine’s Day? West, your uncle just… he just died. On the floor. What is this?”
The words are so absurd, so completely disconnected from the horror of the evening that a choked, hysterical laugh almost escapes me. Valentine’s Day. Asher died on Valentine’s Day.
West crosses the space between us and, without a word, pulls me to my feet. He draws me into the center of the room, his right hand settling on the bare skin of my lower back, his lefttaking my hand. His touch is electric, sending a shiver through my shock-numbed body.
He begins to lead and my feet, clumsy at first, start to follow. We are slow dancing in the middle of a vast, empty room. The city lights are a glittering tapestry below us, the ghost of a dead man hanging in the air between us. My mind is screaming that this is insane, that I should run, that I should fight. But my body betrays me. It sags against him, seeking his strength, his solidity. He is the only fixed point in a universe that has just been torn apart.
“This is insane,” I whisper, trying to pull back, but his grip is firm. “We should be at the hospital, or talking to the police. Not…this.”
I rest my head against his chest, and the steady, calm rhythm of his heartbeat is a stark contrast to my own frantic pulse. I can smell the faint scent of his cologne, of whiskey. Of pure, undiluted West.
“Your mind is loud,” he murmurs against my hair. “It’s always loud, isn’t it? A storm of thoughts, calculations, and fears.” He pulls back just enough to look down at me, his dark eyes intense, hypnotic. “If you have chaos going on in your mind, then I need to be your peace.”
“Peace?” I challenge, my voice trembling with a mixture of anger and disbelief. “You think this is peace? Your uncle is dead. You just left his body on the balcony, and you’re in here… dancing?”
“His body is being taken care of,” he says, his voice chillingly calm. “The world you’re worried about—the police, the hospital—that world is for other people. It no longer applies to us. The old rules are gone. I am the new rule. This,” he says, pulling me infinitesimally closer, “is the only thing that matters now. This is our peace.”
We continue to move in a slow, hypnotic rhythm. His terrifying logic begins to seep into the cracks of my shock.
“You wanted this,” I whisper, the accusation hanging in the air. It’s not a question. I’m stating a fact I’m only just now allowing myself to comprehend. “You wanted him gone.”
“He was going to send you away,” West says, his voice flat, a simple statement of fact. “He told me to end it, to accept an engagement with another woman. A more ‘suitable’ match.” He leans his forehead against mine, his eyes boring into me. “This thing between us, Kinsley… It’s not easy. It’s not simple, but it’s the only thing that’s real.”
He pulls me closer, his lips brushing my temple. “It’s easy to love someone in the good times. Anyone can do that. You don’t pick someone easy to have fun with. You pick someone that you can struggle with, and still see it through to the end.”
