I manage a nod. Then, because I’m braver than I feel, I ask the question that’s been clawing at me. “How did you find me?”
His grip tightens, not rough, not gentle. Possessive.
“I’m very good at finding what I want,” he murmurs near my ear. “And you caught my attention.”
He steps back before I can respond, issuing quiet instructions to a man who appears at his side like a shadow. My groceries are handled. My escape is sealed.
As he mounts his bike, he looks at me one last time, slow, deliberate.
“Try not to ignore me,” he says. “I don’t like having to chase.”
Then he’s gone, leaving behind the echo of his presence, and the terrifying truth settling deep in my bones.
I don’t think I want him to stop.
Chapter Five
Khai
I leave on my bike faster than necessary, the engine snarling beneath me like it knows I shouldn’t look back. Music pulses through my helmet, loud enough to drown out the thought of her standing there, unaware of how close I came to staying. To watching her longer. To losing myself in the quiet act of observing.
I don’t linger. I never have.
A message from my father flashes through my mind like a warning shot.Meeting. ASAP.
Perfect.
I’d already been watching her before that. From the moment she stepped out of her car, sunlight catching in her hair, her body relaxed in a way that told me she believed she was safe. She isn’t what I expected. There’s a softness to her that shouldn’t survive in this world, and yet the way she smiles, the way she laughs without reservation, makes something dark coil tighter in my chest.
I want to hear those sounds directed at me.
By the time the message came through, the need had already taken root. To get close. To touch her again. To breathe her in until she settled somewhere permanent beneath my skin.
Instead, I ride toward my father’s estate.
It should take an hour. I make it in half. Rules have never applied to me, not road laws, not boundaries, not consequences.
I own cars. Several. But none of them offer what the bike does. Freedom. Focus. Silence from the things that claw at the back of mymind. Riding keeps the demons just far enough away that they don’t whisper too loudly.
The gates recognise me before I slow, opening with mechanical obedience. Security doesn’t question me. They never have.
The driveway stretches long and winding, trees arching overhead like spectators. The fountain at the centre of the roundabout glints under the lights, a relic from my childhood. I remember when it was built. I also remember the men who vanished because my father didn’t like the final result.
He doesn’t tolerate imperfection.
Neither did he train me to.
Jaxon’s already here. I cut the engine, remove my helmet, and inhale slowly, bracing myself for whatever demand waits inside.
The house is all marble and arrogance. One of the younger maids approaches, colour blooming across her cheeks when she sees me. She knows who I am. They all do.
“Good afternoon, Mr Harris. Your father is in his office.”
She won’t meet my eyes. I wonder vaguely if I’ve touched her before. Most of them blur together.
My father’s voice carries down the hallway, one-sided, clipped, decisive. I don’t knock. I never knock.
Jaxon lounges on the couch, phone in hand, posture relaxed but his mouth set hard. He doesn’t joke when my father’s involved. He nods at me once. I return it as the call ends.
