Chapter 10
683 Words
Elliot
The bed was cold.
That was the first thing Elliot registered as consciousness crept back—an absence where warmth should have been, a space beside him that felt wrong in a way his body recognised before his mind did.
He sat up sharply.
“Celina?”
Silence.
The penthouse was too quiet. No soft movement. No breath. No faint scent of her lingering in the air beyond what already clung to the sheets.
Fear hit first.
Not panic—fear had edges. Purpose.
He was out of bed in seconds, moving through the rooms with long, controlled strides. Bathroom. Empty. Kitchen. Spotless. Living room, still washed in early morning grey.
Gone.
His chest tightened painfully.
He stood still for a moment, forcing himself to breathe, to think. She hadn’t taken anything that wasn’t hers. No signs of distress. No broken glass. No struggle.
She had left.
The realisation landed harder than he expected.
He dragged a hand down his face and reached for his phone.
“Frank,” he said the moment the line connected. “I need you to locate Celina Sheppard’s phone. Now.”
A pause—just long enough to be felt.
“On it,” Frank replied. “No emergency signal. Phone’s active.”
“Where?”
“Moving north,” Frank said after a beat.
“University district. Looks like she’s back where she was staying.”
Relief surged through Elliot so sharply he had to brace himself against the counter.
“Good,” he said quietly. “Stand down. No tail. No contact.”
“Yes, sir.”
He ended the call and stared out at the city.
She had left without a word.
And somehow, that felt right.
She wasn’t running from him—she was reclaiming herself. Drawing a line that said I choose when and how.
The respect that bloomed in his chest was immediate and unsettling.
He showered again, slower this time, letting the water beat against his shoulders as he replayed the night in fragments he couldn’t shake—the way she’d confronted him, the way she’d answered his restraint with hunger, the way she’d slept beside him like she trusted him not to cross what he hadn’t earned.
And then she’d left.
Not to punish him.
But to remind him who she was.
He saw her again that afternoon.
The universe—or something more deliberate—put her in his path outside the research wing.
She stood with a tablet tucked under her arm, hair loose, expression guarded but composed.
She looked… steady.
Alive.
His steps slowed despite himself.
“Celina.”
She turned.
For a heartbeat, something unspoken passed between them—memory, heat, questions neither was ready to ask aloud.
“You left,” he said.
“I needed to,” she replied evenly. “I didn’t think I owed you an explanation.”
“You didn’t,” he said at once. “I was worried anyway.”
Her brow furrowed. “You called security?”
“I stopped them,” he said. “As soon as I knew you were safe.”
That seemed to matter to her. He saw it in the slight easing of her shoulders.
They stood there, suspended in the space between last night and now.
“I won’t chase you,” Elliot said quietly. “But I won’t pretend I don’t want to see you again either.”
She studied him, searching for control, for pressure.
He gave her none.
“Have dinner with me,” he said instead. “Not as an apology. Not as an obligation. Just… dinner.”
A choice.
Her lips parted slightly. She hesitated, then nodded once.
“Okay,” she said. “Dinner.”
Something in his chest unlocked at the sound of it.
As she walked away, Elliot understood the truth with a clarity that both steadied and terrified him.
Whatever this was between them—it wouldn’t be taken.
It would be earned.
And for the first time since he’d lost everything, Elliot Blackwood was willing to risk wanting more than control.
- Writer
