ChapterTwo
733 Words
CHAPTER TWO
Cassian
She looked like a ghost, but ghosts didn’t bleed.
And Zariah Blake—no matter how well she played the part of a woman untouched by fire—bled once.
All over my past.
I watched her as she took her seat at the end of the table, carefully smoothing her black skirt, pretending like her hands weren’t trembling beneath the oak-veneered surface. She’d changed her hair. Longer now. Natural. Coiled and regal. She wore it like a crown and armor all at once.
But it was still her.
Same tilted chin when she was lying.
Same flinch she thought no one saw when someone touched her unexpectedly.
Same scent. Vanilla and defiance.
Five years. I waited five years.
“Gentlemen,” I said without breaking eye contact with her, “thank you for your time. I’ll review the proposals personally. You’ll have my response by Monday.”
Chairs scraped. Papers shuffled. My team filtered out like obedient shadows, each one oblivious to the live wire seated in front of me.
Except for Adrian.
He lingered by the door, his gaze flicking between me and her. Ever the hawk. Ever my right hand.
“I’ll wait in the car,” he said, tone clipped.
Zariah rose as soon as we were alone, her spine straightening like she remembered how to fight again.
“You’ve made your point,” she said, her voice low and steady, even as I saw the panic swimming just beneath it. “You found me. Bravo.”
I stood, slow and deliberate. “Oh, Zariah. This isn’t the point. It’s the prologue.”
Her jaw clenched. “I don’t know what you think this is, but I’m not staying. I work here. That’s it. Whatever war you’re planning to wage, find someone else to drag into it.”
I crossed the room with two strides. Stopped when I was close enough to feel the heat of her anger.
“You work for me now,” I said, voice sharp enough to crack glass.
She blinked. “What?”
“I acquired this company two days ago. New ownership, new structure.” I leaned closer. “Same face I’ve been hunting for half a decade.”
She backed up, one step, then two. But the wall found her first.
“I’m not the same girl,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Good,” I whispered. “Because I’m not the same man.”
For a moment, we said nothing.
Her chest rose and fell in shallow movements. Her lips were parted. I wondered if she remembered how they felt crushed beneath mine. If she remembered the way her hands trembled the night I told her I’d kill for her.
Because I had.
And she ran.
“You still owe me the truth,” I murmured.
She laughed, brittle and short. “You wouldn’t know what to do with the truth if it stripped for you.”
That stung more than it should have.
But I smiled. “Try me.”
She pushed past me, her shoulder grazing mine like an accusation. “You won’t trap me again.”
“You came back to the cage, Zariah,” I said. “You just didn’t know I still had the key.”
---
She walked out, but I didn’t stop her.
Not yet.
Let her breathe. Let her pretend the game hadn’t already started. Let her keep thinking I was after closure.
What I wanted wasn’t closure.
It was her.
---
Zariah
The hallway spun.
I pressed a palm to the glass wall and sucked in a breath. The world beyond the skyscraper pulsed in shades of gray and white. London in April—still cold, still unforgiving.
Cassian Moretti. Here.
My worst nightmare and secret craving all in one perfect, ruthless package.
He wasn’t supposed to find me. I’d changed everything. My name. My file. My face, even. Burned every connection. Covered every track.
And still… he found me.
I could feel him behind me, even with five walls between us. That was the worst part.
He wasn’t just a man.
He was a presence.
He took up space like gravity, and my body remembered how it used to orbit his without permission.
The lift doors dinged. I stepped inside and hit the button for the ground floor with more force than necessary.
I needed out.
Now.
- Writer
