Chapter 14 - Caught in His Space
594 Words
Elara didn’t turn right away.
His presence filled the space behind her, close enough to thin the air. The file remained open in her hands, though the words had stopped making sense.
It didn’t matter.
He had seen enough.
Slowly, she straightened, her fingers tightening before she set the paper down and forced herself to face him.
Thorne stood just inside the room, the door left open behind him. His gaze fixed on her, steady and dark, the anger in it controlled rather than raised, making it harder to ignore.
Her breath caught before she could stop it.
Neither of them spoke.
His eyes shifted briefly—to the desk, to the open compartment, to the file she had touched—then returned to her.
“What are you doing in my office?”
The question came low, pressing into the space between them.
Elara opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came.
“I… I wasn’t—”
The words collapsed before they could form.
He stepped closer.
The movement was unhurried, yet the distance vanished all the same, leaving her with less room to think.
She held his gaze. Looking away would have made it worse.
“I was looking for…” she tried again, forcing the words out. “I thought I saw something earlier. I just wanted to check.”
The excuse hung between them, thin enough that it barely held.
His expression tightened.
“You expect me to believe that?”
Her throat closed.
“I didn’t take anything,” she said quickly. “I was just—”
“Going through my things.”
He finished it for her.
There was no way around it.
Elara stayed where she was, aware of how little ground she had left.
His attention didn’t leave her.
“You think you can walk into my space,” he said, his voice dropping further, “and I won’t notice.”
Her pulse picked up, loud and uneven.
“I needed answers,” she said, quieter now, though the truth held. “No one here is willing to give them.”
Something in his gaze shifted—sharpened.
“And this is how you chose to find them.”
She didn’t answer.
He already knew.
Silence stretched, heavier now.
Then he moved.
His hand came down against the desk beside her, cutting off any easy escape without touching her. The sudden closeness made it harder to breathe, harder to hold onto anything steady.
“You don’t get to do that,” he said, the words landing with quiet force.
Elara felt the desk at her back, her hands curling slightly at her sides as instinct told her to move.
She didn’t.
Fear settled in anyway.
Real.
Immediate.
She hadn’t expected this.
Not like this.
His gaze held hers, leaving no space to look away.
“You don’t get to walk in here and decide what matters,” he continued, the weight in his voice building. “You don’t get to search through things you don’t understand.”
Her throat tightened as she tried to respond.
“I—”
The word broke.
She forced herself through it.
“I wasn’t trying to—”
It fell apart again.
He didn’t move.
Didn’t give her space.
“Then explain it.”
Elara held his gaze, though the certainty she had walked in with had slipped, replaced by something far less steady.
She had no explanation.
Not one he would accept.
And standing this close, with his attention fixed on her, made that impossible to ignore.
- Writer
