Chapter 13 - Fractures
1281 Words
Aria
The world was supposed to feel the same when morning came.
The same cracked sidewalks on my way to the café. The same hiss of the espresso machine. The same scent of roasted beans clinging to my apron.
But nothing felt the same.
Sleep hadn’t been merciful. My dreams replayed Damon’s gaze—the way it stripped me bare, the way it clung like invisible chains. I had woken more tired than when I had gone to bed, pulse quickening at shadows, certain I would find him at the foot of my bed.
Now, standing behind the counter at Morning Brew, I tried to breathe through the ordinary. My co-worker, Jenny, hummed off-key to a pop song as she prepped pastries. The doorbell chimed with every customer. Normal life. Safe life.
But safety felt like a thin film of glass that could shatter at the slightest tap.
“Double shot cappuccino, extra foam,” a man in a gray suit said. His voice was deep enough to make my stomach clench. For a heartbeat, my lungs froze. I looked up—wrong jawline, wrong eyes. Not Damon. Relief hit me like air after drowning.
“Coming right up,” I forced a smile, fingers trembling as I grabbed the portafilter.
Jenny shot me a look. “You okay? You’re jumpier than a cat in a thunderstorm.”
I almost laughed. If only she knew. “Didn’t sleep well,” I muttered.
She shrugged, unconcerned, and went back to her humming. But I knew I was unraveling. Damon Cross hadn’t touched me since that night outside, hadn’t even spoken another word—yet he was everywhere. In the flicker of headlights, in the baritone voices of strangers, in the ghost of heat that had burned through me when his breath touched my skin.
The coffee machine sputtered, snapping me out of it. I handed the man his cappuccino and pasted on another smile.
Normal. Be normal.
The bell chimed again. My heart jolted, wild and reckless, before I even turned my head.
He wasn’t there. Just two college kids laughing over iced lattes.
I hated myself for the disappointment that slithered beneath the relief.
---
Damon
The city glittered beneath me like something I already owned. From the wall of glass in my penthouse, I could see its arteries pulsing with morning traffic, its skyscrapers stabbing the sky. Every inch of it was mine—or could be—except for her.
Aria Morgan.
She haunted me. The defiance in her eyes, the fire in her pulse when I cornered her, the way she tried to mask her fear with that trembling chin.
Most women I touched folded like silk. They bent to my will because they knew resistance was pointless. Aria hadn’t bent. Not fully. And that resistance wasn’t a barrier. It was an invitation.
I set down my glass of bourbon—yes, bourbon before noon, because patience had never been my virtue—and picked up the tablet on my desk. A live feed blinked to life.
Morning Brew. Her café.
A camera I had placed discreetly across the street gave me the perfect view of its front window. I zoomed in, and there she was, framed in glass like a painting. Blond hair catching the light, apron tied tight, lips curved in a smile that wasn’t real.
She was breaking. I could see it in the twitch of her fingers, the way her gaze snapped toward every man who entered.
Good. She was learning what it meant to be seen by me.
I leaned back in my chair, smile curling. “You can fight me, Aria,” I murmured to the empty room, “but you can’t erase me.”
My phone buzzed. A text from Marcus, my head of operations. “The property deal closed. Shall I prepare the documents?”
I ignored it. Deals could wait. There was only one acquisition I wanted right now.
And I always got what I wanted.
---
Aria
By noon, I thought I’d managed to keep myself together. I even joked with Jenny when she spilled powdered sugar all over her shoes.
Then the bell chimed again.
My skin prickled before my brain caught up. I didn’t have to look. I knew.
He walked in like he owned the place, like the world tilted slightly to accommodate him. Damon Cross. Perfectly tailored suit, dark hair slicked back, those eyes that saw too much. The café seemed to shrink around him, the chatter faltering, the hum of the espresso machine suddenly too loud.
Jenny nearly dropped a tray. “Holy—who is that?” she whispered.
I swallowed, throat desert dry. “A customer,” I lied.
He shouldn’t be here. Not in my space. Not where I built fragile illusions of normal.
He moved with unhurried grace, closing the distance to the counter. People were staring—how could they not? Damon radiated power, wealth, danger, like heat shimmering off asphalt.
“Good morning, Aria,” he said softly. Intimately. As if no one else existed.
My name on his lips was a caress and a threat. “What are you doing here?” I hissed under my breath, keeping my smile plastered for Jenny’s sake.
“Coffee,” he said simply, eyes glinting with amusement. “Black. No sugar.”
Jenny rushed to fill the order, oblivious. My hands curled into fists against the counter. He was dismantling me in public, making me complicit in the illusion of civility.
When Jenny handed him the cup, Damon didn’t look at her. His gaze stayed locked on mine. “You make it taste better,” he murmured, just loud enough for me to hear.
Blood roared in my ears.
“Leave,” I managed, voice trembling.
He leaned closer, the world narrowing to the heat of his body and the scent of expensive cologne. “You think you can hide in routine, little flame? That coffee and powdered sugar will protect you?” His smile was wicked. “I’ll burn through it all.”
Then, as if nothing had happened, he turned and walked out, coffee in hand, leaving silence and staring eyes in his wake.
Jenny exhaled like she’d been holding her breath. “Wow. Do you know him?”
I forced a shaky laugh. “Not really.”
But my body knew him. My fear knew him. And worse—some reckless, secret part of me wanted to know more.
---
Damon
I didn’t need to stay longer. I’d done enough.
The look on her face—fear mingled with fury, a spark of something she didn’t want to name—was better than any acquisition deal. She was unraveling, thread by thread, and I was the hand pulling at the seams.
Back in the car, I took a slow sip of the coffee she hadn’t made but might as well have. The taste was nothing. The victory was everything.
Marcus sat across from me, files in hand. “Mr. Cross, we need your signature—”
“Later.”
He fell silent. They all did, eventually.
My phone buzzed again. A different message this time, from the private investigator I’d hired weeks ago. “Information on Aria Morgan’s landlord. Property can be purchased discreetly. Interested?”
I laughed, low and dangerous.
She thought she could retreat to her little apartment, her little café, her little life. But walls were illusions. And I was very good at tearing illusions down.
“Buy it,” I typed back.
Aria Morgan would learn.
She could run, she could tremble, she could spit fire—but she was already mine.
- Writer
