She was shattered.
I could smell it on her.
I leaned against the pillar near the entrance, arms crossed, motionless. Let the crowd flow around me. Let people call out greetings — “Hey, boss,” “Evening, Lorenzo”—I didn’t hear them.
Marco, the bar manager, glanced at me from behind the counter when he noticed where I was looking. His eyebrow raised a fraction, a silent question. We’d been here before. Usually, I’d set my eyes on one of the beautiful women lingering around the bar, and I’d invite them to have a drink with me.
This time, I gave a small shake of my head.
He nodded and turned away.
I watched her hand tremble as she lifted the glass to her lips and took a sip, then wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. Her shoulders tensed, her breath shallow as if she were afraid someone might see.
And I saw everything.
Including the way she glanced at her suitcase every few seconds, worry flickering in her eyes, as if checking it was still there, still real, still proof she had somewhere else to go.
She was a wound in human form.
And I wanted all of it.
The thought came dark and sharp, and I didn’t flinch away from it. I wanted to take her face between my palms and force her to look at me. To tell me what or who had hurt her. I wanted to unspool her pain like a thread, trace it back to its source, hold it in my hands, and understand it.
More than that, I wanted to own her.
Not in the way men owned things, like cars or houses or companies. No, I wanted to own her suffering. Her joy. Her secrets. I wanted to be the first thing she thought of when she woke and the last thing she saw when she closed her eyes. Yet even as the hunger twisted through me, some part of me recognized the defiance in the set of her mouth, the stubbornness that flickered behind those battered eyes. There was something unbreakable in her, even now. A warning, perhaps, that she would fight anyone who tried to claim her. Especially me.
That thought alone made my cock swell.
She shifted on the stool then, swinging her legs toward me. The hoodie rode up just enough to reveal the curves of her hips, accentuated by her leggings.
This was not the usual attraction for me when a beautiful woman crossed my line of sight. It was pure, consuming, and I felt it take root in my chest like a blade sliding between my ribs.
I pushed off the pillar and walked toward the bar. Not to her, not yet. I stopped at the register, out of her line of sight, and signaled Marco.
“Another round for the lady,” I murmured. My voice was low, rough, barely audible over the noise. “On the house. And if she tries to leave, you slow her down. I don’t care how—offer her water, a song request, a fucking taxi number. Keep her here.”
Marco’s eyes flickered with curiosity, but he knew better than to argue. “Yes, boss.”
He poured the drink and slid it toward her. Then I saw her look up, startled, confusion flickering across her face as Marco spoke. She scanned the room, looking for the source of the kindness. But I was already gone, my back to her, my hands gripping the edge of the counter behind me. I let her search. I let her wonder.
I thought about my father’s ultimatum. One month. Marry or lose everything—the bar, the penthouse, the money, the name on my back. Twenty years of building my own empire, and he could wipe it out with a single phone call.
Fuck it.
Let him take the bar.
Let him take the money.
I would burn it all myself if it meant I could stay here, watching her, breathing her air, memorizing the way her fingers curled around the glass. I didn’t care about anything else.
But maybe I didn’t need to choose.
Maybe I could keep my place, preserve all I’d built, and claim her too. I could twist my father’s terms to fit my will, break his rules, and make them mine.
For a heartbeat, the idea flared vivid—her beside me, the business still mine, and my father forced to witness my victory. The possibility tasted like triumph and danger.
And before I could sit in that thought, the scrape of her stool as she stood to leave, snapped me back.
