Asher’s hand comes down on the armrest between us.
Steady. Grounded.
His fingers don’t touch me, but the space between them is deliberate. Claimed.
“That’s not you,” he says quietly.
Not reassurance. Not a question.
A statement.
I swallow, throat tight. My phone buzzes in my lap like it knows.
He doesn’t look at the screen again. Just reaches for the remote and changes the channel with an efficiency that feels practiced, final. The movie starts mid-scene, sound swelling to fill the space the news leaves behind.
Only then do I realize my heart is racing.
I feel my phone start to vibrate with multiple texts. I don’t unlock my phone.
I don’t need to see the messages to know what they say. I can already hear the jokes forming. The disbelief. The casual cruelty of people who’ve never had to worry about being mistaken for something dangerous.
Asher doesn’t move away.
The heat of him is there, solid and unavoidable, and I hate that it works. Hate that my breathing evens out because of it. Hate that part of me is relieved—and ashamed—because he’s right here, and the city isn’t.
I don’t understand it yet, not fully. I only know that something shifts. When the glass walls stopped feeling like a view and started feeling like armor.
After that, things settle into a rhythm.
He watches me instead of the screen sometimes. I feel it before I see it—the weight of his attention, steady and unashamed. When I glance over, amusement plays at the corner of his mouth, like he knows exactly what’s running through my head.
Like he’s waiting for me to break first.
But he won’t tell me anything. Not about the imposter. Not about the threat.
That realization gnaws at me. He’s too comfortable with me trapped in his space, like he doesn’t need me to be grateful—or cooperative—or even scared.
Just present.
He comes and goes, but when he’s home, he makes sure I feel it. A brush of fingertips when he hands me a glass of wine. A look that lingers a second too long. A remark weighted just enough to make me wonder if I’m imagining the double meaning.
A door closing somewhere down the hall. A voice murmuring, always just out of reach.
And no matter how pristine the nights feel, I can’t stop thinking about that one—the night I slept while someone stood close enough to touch me. Watching like a ghost stitched into the walls.
The words still echo, sharp and ugly.
You killed my family. I will kill yours.
The space should unsettle me.
It does, but I refuse to let it make me small.
And if I’m going to be afraid, I won’t do it blindly.
So I start searching.
The upper level is designed with purpose—minimalist, precise, and impossibly expensive. Everything feels intentional, like it was placed once and never meant to be disturbed. The master suite takes up an entire corner of the penthouse, an open-concept sprawl with a sitting area and floor-to-ceiling windows that wrap around the city like it belongs to him.
