For a brief moment, something dark stirs inside me. The familiar pull. The promise of blood, of violence, of the sharp clarity it brings. I imagine it—the snap of bone, the sound of begging—and feel how easily it could lift my mood.
Then the feeling dies.
“I’m in the studio,” I say instead. “Not tonight.”
There’s a pause on the other end of the line. Then Lev scoffs softly. “Suit yourself.”
The call ends.
I lower the phone and stare out into the dim room, jaw tight.
The studio is dim, lit only by the city bleeding in through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Concrete. Steel. Control. I built this room to be untouched by emotion.
It failed.
The easel waits against the far wall. I cross the space and yank the cloth away.
Her. Sienna.
I had my guards move this portrait from my penthouse studio to the villa. Why? I don’t know. I just had to have it near. It’s one of my most honest works.
Charcoal lines carve her into existence—arched brow, sharp mouth, the tilt of her head like she’s daring the world to come closer. I come here every day. Sometimes twice. I never touch the drawing. I just stand and let it do whatever it wants to me.
It’s beautiful.
And it’s still nothing compared to the woman herself.
My chest tightens, breath catching like I’ve been struck instead of realizing something. Want crashes into me, heavy and undeniable. Not lust. Not possession.
Need.
I drag a hand down my face, staring at the curve of her jaw I memorized with my eyes before I ever earned the right with my hands.
Five years.
Five years of crossing rooms to avoid her. Of delegating meetings. Of pretending distance was discipline instead of fear. Because I knew—knew—that the moment she stood in front of me again, the careful walls would collapse.
It’ll be endgame.
There’s no middle ground with Sienna Roth. There never was.
I married her, thinking control would save us. Thinking proximity would dull the ache. Thinking I could rewrite the past by claiming the present.
I was wrong.
Because wanting her isn’t something I grew into.
It’s something that’s always lived in me, patient and lethal, waiting for permission to surface.
And now she’s back in my house.
In my bed.
In my life.
Hiding something. Carrying a storm I can feel but can’t see.
I stare at the drawing until my vision blurs, one truth settling with brutal clarity:
