She just stood there, staring.
Trapped between two cages. One gilded. One burning.
“What’s it going to be?” I asked, straightening up. No smile. No softness.
Just a question—and a promise.
She swallowed, but her stare didn’t break. “You think this is some kind of game?”
“Only if you’re ready to lose.”
I stepped closer. One pace. That’s all it took. The space between us vanished like it never existed.
For a second, the world went silent.
No elevator hum. No party noise echoing through the floor. Just her breath—shaky, determined.
She was standing at the edge of the fire. And she hadn’t moved.
Not away from me, at least.
Then she took that breath—the kind people take before doing something they can’t undo. And she stepped inside.
My world. My rules. My fucking game now.
The door shut behind her with a soft click.
But in my chest?
Everything slammed open.
The door clicked shut behind her like a trigger being pulled. The noise of the party died, swallowed by the silence of my penthouse—and just like that, she was in my world.
No cameras. No fiancé. No one to save her from me.
Good.
I crossed to the bar, untucking the top two buttons of my shirt, letting the silence stretch. She followed, steps slow, careful—but not scared. Not yet.
She should’ve been.
I grabbed the bottle—top shelf shit; the kind reserved for nights you don’t want to forget, or maybe the ones you can’t afford to remember. Poured two fingers each into heavy crystal. The whiskey caught the light, burning gold.
Like her.
She reached for the glass, all smooth fingers and practiced elegance.
I stopped her hand with mine. Firm. No room for question.
“Don’t sip it like a rich girl.” My voice dropped into something rougher. “Take a real drink.”
She arched a brow, mouth twitching like I’d dared her. Good. I had.
Without blinking, she tossed it back—like it was water and not fire. The line of her throat worked as the whiskey went down, and for a second, I forgot how to breathe.
She slammed the glass back onto the counter and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand like a fucking rebel.
Damn.
