Chapter Nine: Closed Doors
1276 Words
Arielle closed the door behind her with a soft click and leaned against it.
Silence.
The penthouse always felt too quiet, too large, but tonight, it was something else entirely. The stillness didn’t comfort her—it throbbed with what had just happened. That charged, loaded moment in the hallway where Kairo had touched her. Brief. Measured. Dangerous.
She walked to the center of the room and sat on the edge of her bed, the soft rustle of her dress the only sound.
He had touched her jaw.
It was nothing, really. Bare skin. A simple graze. But the way he’d done it—slow, with eyes trained on hers—it hadn’t been casual. It hadn’t been professional.
It had been deliberate.
And the worst part? She hadn’t moved. She hadn’t shut it down. She hadn’t done a damn thing but feel it.
Arielle bent forward and pressed her palms into her knees. Her fingers curled against the fabric of her dress. She wanted to say it was all part of the game—that this, too, was strategy. Just more theater. But deep down, she knew the difference.
She’d felt things before. Curiosity. Attention. Sometimes heat. She wasn’t a stranger to being desired. But this wasn’t about attraction.
It was about pressure. The kind you couldn’t push off or ignore. The kind that wrapped around your ribs and made every breath sharp.
Kairo had a way of doing that—showing nothing, giving almost nothing. But still making you feel like you were being watched, assessed, understood.
And now she was starting to feel like she was the one who needed to be careful.
Not because she was scared of him.
But because she was scared of what she wanted to do next.
Arielle stood up and walked over to her vanity. She turned on the small lamp beside the mirror and stared at her reflection. Her lipstick had faded. Her hair was slightly undone. But the person in the mirror wasn’t the same version of herself who had first stepped into Kairo’s world.
This one was sharper. Quieter. And more dangerous.
Because she was starting to like the game.
Her fingers touched her jaw where his had been. She didn’t mean to. It just happened.
She dropped her hand immediately and pulled open a drawer. Inside, a notebook. Blank. She flipped it open and stared at the empty page.
There were so many things she could’ve written.
But she didn’t want to document this like some adolescent crush.
Still, the thoughts kept circling.
Was it just a physical thing?
Probably. Maybe.
But there was more underneath it.
Kairo Vescari didn’t touch people. Not casually. Not affectionately. He wasn’t someone who offered warmth. He dealt in control. Precision. Distance. So why had he done that?
To test her?
To distract her?
Or… had he lost control, just a little?
She couldn’t decide what was worse—that he did it intentionally, or that he hadn’t.
She thought about the way he’d stood there after. The silence. The breath between them. The way neither of them moved for a solid ten seconds, as if the air itself was too heavy to cut through.
That wasn’t nothing.
Arielle sat back down on the bed and rubbed the back of her neck.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
She was supposed to be here for one reason: survive the engagement, gain leverage over her family, then walk away with her autonomy intact. That was the plan. Not get caught in Kairo’s orbit. Not feel the heat between their fights. And definitely not want to know what it would be like to cross that line.
She had to be smarter.
She was smarter.
She’d watched her sisters fall apart in relationships that looked perfect on paper but rotted from the inside. She’d seen the way her mother used love like a leash. Arielle wasn’t built for softness. She wasn’t made for surrender.
And yet... she hadn’t walked away when he leaned in.
She hadn’t even blinked.
Her phone buzzed on the nightstand.
She grabbed it, half-hoping for a distraction.
It was a message.
From Kairo.
“Don’t forget your meeting with the foundation director tomorrow. 9AM. Wear the navy dress.”
No greeting. No sign of what had just passed between them. Just cold instruction.
Of course.
Arielle stared at the message for a moment, then typed back.
“I’ll wear what I want.”
She hovered over the send button.
Paused.
Then deleted it.
She tossed the phone back onto the bed.
Why did she want to provoke him?
Why did she want him to notice?
Because he already had. And now she couldn’t unsee the way he looked at her sometimes—not with lust, not exactly. But something closer to calculation laced with curiosity. As if she was shifting in front of him and he hadn’t finished solving the puzzle yet.
And the truth was—she hadn’t finished solving him either.
The notebook she found in his study. The list of names. His obsession with control. It wasn’t just about power. Something else was there. Something rooted and personal.
But she wasn’t closer to answers. She was just deeper in.
Arielle stood up again and paced the room. She walked to the window and pulled the curtain back. City lights blinked at her. Cold and detached.
Just like him.
She wondered if he was in his room right now. If he was working. Or if he was thinking about her, too.
She hated that she wanted that.
She pressed her forehead lightly against the glass and closed her eyes.
For a brief second, she imagined what it would be like if this weren’t an arrangement. If she and Kairo had met some other way. If there were no legacy. No Devereux name. No strategic engagement. Just two people crossing paths, pulling toward each other like magnets.
Would she still feel this thing in her chest?
Probably.
But it didn’t matter.
Because none of that was real.
What was real was the fact that she lived under the same roof as a man who could dismantle empires and smile while doing it.
And somehow, she wasn’t just surviving in that world. She was adapting.
She was starting to enjoy the tension.
Starting to test him.
And he was starting to let her.
Arielle turned away from the window and dropped back onto the bed.
The air conditioning kicked on, humming low.
She lay back on the pillows, staring at the ceiling.
Tomorrow, she would wake up and go to another carefully curated event, say all the right things, make Kairo look polished and stable and respectable. She would wear the navy dress. Or maybe she wouldn’t. Just to see what he’d do.
But tonight?
Tonight she had to admit something quietly to herself.
She wasn’t indifferent anymore.
And that made everything harder.
Because if Kairo touched her again, she wasn’t sure what she’d do.
If he leaned in—
If he crossed that last, thin line—
She didn’t know whether she’d pull away.
Or lean in, too.
That was the part that scared her.
Because power was easy to play with when you were calm.
But once desire entered the picture, everything got messier.
And Kairo didn’t seem like the kind of man who did messy without consequence.
Arielle reached for the lamp and turned it off.
Darkness swept over the room.
She lay still, eyes open, heart unsettled.
Tomorrow could wait.
But tonight, she had to face the truth:
She was losing her grip on the original plan.
And Kairo Vescari was the reason.
- Writer
