He took my suitcase from the back without asking, slung it easily like it weighed nothing, and fell into step beside me as we headed toward the terminal.
Not a half-step behind.
As if he’d already decided where he belonged.
Inside, the air was too warm and too bright. People moved in streams—families, couples, business travelers with rolling bags and tired faces. A woman in a hat laughed into her phone. A child cried. A man argued with a gate agent. Life, continuing.
And Cassian moved through it like a blade through fabric.
I felt eyes flick toward him, then away. Not because he was loud or flashy. He wasn’t.
Because he had that thing—quiet dominance that didn’t ask to be noticed and still drew attention like gravity.
He glanced down at me once, subtle. “You’re tense.”
I huffed softly. “I’m in an airport.”
“That’s not why.”
I slid my coffee lid with my thumb, buying time. “Fine. I’m … aware.”
His mouth curved faintly. “You’ve been aware.”
“Different kind of aware.”
He looked ahead. “Explain.”
I almost laughed again. Cassian Locke asking for explanation like it was a language he actually spoke.
“You’re … here,” I said. “In public. In my world. And you don’t look like you’re visiting.”
“I’m not,” he said.
The simplicity of it made my throat tighten.
We reached the airline counter before I could decide how I felt about that sentence. Cassian gave his name to the attendant and a credit card appeared in his hand like it had always been there. No fumbling. No pockets. No wasted motion.
He didn’t look at me when he upgraded something.
He didn’t ask.
He just did it.
I watched the attendant’s expression flicker—professional smile sharpening into sudden attentiveness. Her tone changed. Her posture changed.
Money did that.
Not the kind that begged to be seen, but the kind that rearranged rooms without ever raising its voice.
Cassian took our boarding passes, thanked her once, and turned away as if none of it mattered.
It did, though.
It mattered in the same way the South of Broad address mattered.
Not because I cared about luxury.
Because it implied reach. Infrastructure. A life that existed behind the few facts he’d allowed me to hold.
