My mind drifts to the library and the kiss that changed everything for me. The way she melted against me before remembering to resist, her body surrendering even as her mind screamed warnings. The taste of her on my lips, sweet and warm and addictive in ways I'm not prepared to examine. The soft sounds she made when I pressed her against the bookshelves. Those breathy moans of hers went straight to my cock and lodged there like a permanent ache.
I'm hardening now just thinking about it, my erection pressing uncomfortably against the zipper of my trousers. I shift in my chair and try to focus on the practical matters at hand, but my body refuses to cooperate.
She's not like anyone I've ever wanted.
The women who have passed through my life over the years were soft where they should have been strong, pliable where they should have pushed back. They wanted my money, my power, my protection. They wanted the status that comes with being on the arm of a man like me. None of them wanted me, the real me, the broken man beneath the expensive suits and the dangerous reputation.
But Katriana is sharp where others are soft. Strong where others break. She stands in front of me with her chin raised and her eyes blazing and tells me exactly what she thinks of my methods, my brother, my entire goddamn existence. She doesn't cower when I crowd her space. She doesn't simper when I give herorders. She pushes back, challenges me, makes me work for every inch of ground I gain.
She makes me want to be better than I am.
The thought settles into my chest with a weight that surprises me, heavy and terrifying in its implications. I haven't wanted to be better in a very long time. I accepted years ago that I am what this life has made me. I am a man of violence and cold calculation. It’s a hard fact and a harder necessity. I stopped hoping for softness or redemption. I thought my life would forever be void of the kind of love that transforms rather than destroys.
And then a woman with dark curls and fierce eyes dropped a wish into my box, and everything I thought I knew about myself started to crumble.
I turn the heir clause over in my mind. A child. A family. A future that outlives the empire I've built and the enemies circling its walls. I meant what I told her about not forcing it. If I operated with the same cruelty as my brother, maybe I would. Jonah would have hauled her into his bed that first night, would have swung the contract like a club and seized what he wanted without sparing a thought for how she felt.
But I am not my brother. I refuse to be.
I know what I told her that night in her apartment, when rage and desperation made me cruel. I threw the heir clause at her like a threat and then I watched her flinch. I felt satisfaction curdle into shame the moment the words left my mouth. I was angry at Victor, at Jonah, at every man who had ever hurt her, and I took that anger out on the one person who least deserved it.
The thought of her carrying my child makes my chest ache with a longing so fierce it steals my breath. I can picture it with devastating clarity: Katriana round with my baby, her hand pressed against the swell of her belly while I kneel before her and feel our child kick against my palm. A family. A real family, built on choice rather than coercion, on love rather than obligation.
But that future depends on her wanting it too. On her trusting me enough to choose me. And right now, she's still sleeping in a separate bedroom with a locked door between us, still flinching at shadows I didn't cast, still waiting for me to prove that I'm just like every other man who has used and discarded her.
I push back from the monitors and rise from my chair, my body stiff from sitting too long in one position. The security room feels smaller than it did an hour ago, the walls pressing in on me with the weight of my own obsession.
I need to get out of here. Need to do something productive instead of watching her like a lovesick fool.
I exit through the back corridor that connects the security center to the executive floor, using the private entrance we built into my office for exactly these situations. It allows me to come and go without being seen, to move through my own building like a ghost when I need the anonymity. Right now, I need it because I don't trust myself to walk past her office without stopping and finding some excuse to see her, to hear her voice, to breathe in the vanilla and cotton scent that clings to her skin.
I settle behind my desk and pull out my phone, typing a message before I can talk myself out of it.
Dinner. 7 PM. My office. -Drake
I hit send and set the phone face-down on the desk, refusing to watch for her response like a teenager waiting by the phone for his crush to call. I have work to do. An empire to run. Decisions that affect hundreds of lives and millions of dollars.
The afternoon passes in a blur of meetings and negotiations. I sit through a quarterly review with Massimo, sign off on a shipment manifest that Luca brings me. I take a call from one of our contacts in the port authority about increased inspections. The machinery of my empire grinds on, relentless and demanding, and I give it the attention it deserves.
But my mind keeps returning to her.
I wonder if she's eaten lunch. Wonder if Sienna has made her feel welcome. Wonder if she's thought about last night, about the kiss, about the sound of my voice moaning her name through the crack in that door. The not-knowing is its own form of torture, and I inflict it on myself willingly because the alternative is admitting how far gone I already am.
Evening comes slowly, the light outside my windows shifting from bright afternoon gold to the softer amber of approaching sunset. I watch the shadows lengthen across my desk and try to focus on the document in front of me, but the words swim and blur until they're meaningless.
At 4:45, I hear the distant chime of the elevator. The soft click of heels against marble. The murmur of voices as the last few employees gather their things and head home for the night.
At 5:00, silence descends over the executive floor like a blanket.
Two hours of hell pass. It takes every fiber of my being to stay on this side of my door rather than search out the little rose counting down time on the other side.
At 7:00 exactly, there’s a soft knock at my door. She presses the handle down and golden light spills in.
Mine,my heart screams and fuck if I am going to correct the bleeding thing.
The evening light catches in her dark hair, turning the waves to burnished mahogany where they fall over her shoulders. She's still wearing the navy skirt and white blouse, but the day has softened her edges. A few strands of hair have escaped their arrangement to curl against her cheeks. Her lipgloss has faded to a natural pink. Those glasses sit slightly askew on her nose, evidence of how many times she's pushed them up throughout the day.
She looks real in a way she didn't this morning. I want to say relaxed, but there’s no way the blush on her cheeks is from a long day at work. She’s as worked up about our dinner date as I am.
