His Favourite Obsession

Needs

Viviene’s POV

I was lying on the long sofa, staring at the ceiling, when the knock came. Three knocks. Not loud, not soft. The kind that expects an answer.

I didn’t move. If it was another agent selling insurance or cable plans, they’d give up eventually. Or they wouldn’t. But I also had this feeling—small and cold, right under my ribs—that it might not be a person at all. I get that feeling a lot now. I don’t trust the door.

“Viviene! It’s Lydia!”

I closed my eyes. Then I pushed myself up and checked through the window, just the edge of the curtain, before I unlocked anything. She was there. Bag over one shoulder, mouth already tight.

I opened the door.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

She looked me over, head to toe, the way someone inspects a mess they didn’t make. “Jesus, Viviene. Why are you doing this to yourself?”

“Doing what?” I said, and I meant it. I hadn’t done anything today except lie down.

Lydia gestured at all of me. “This. You look like you’ve given up. Ever since Uncle and Aunt died, you locked yourself in this house. It’s been three years.”

I didn’t answer.

“It was a car accident,” she said. “It happens. I’m sorry, but please. Move on. They’re dead.”

A car accident.

I almost laughed. I didn’t, because if I started I wasn’t sure what sound would come out. If it had been an accident—a real one—I wouldn’t be standing here checking windows. I wouldn’t be afraid of the dark. But I know what I heard that night. I know the voice that told me to sleep. And I know the police looked at me like I was a problem they wanted to solve by saying nothing.

We sat down. I asked her what she needed.

“Daddy sent me,” she said. “The money your father left is almost gone. He said you need to work. You can live with us, but I know you won’t.” She looked around the room. “You love this house.”

“I do.” My voice came out smaller than I wanted. “But there’s a lot to pay. Water. Electricity. Food.”

Lydia handed me an envelope. “One hundred thousand. It’s the last. That’s what Daddy said.”

I took it. “Thank you.”

She smiled, but it was tired. “If you’re going to work, you have to organize yourself. You need a makeover.”

I looked down at my clothes—loose shirt, old jeans, glasses too big for my face. I used to care about how I looked. I used to care a lot. “That’s why I don’t work. No one would hire someone who looks like this.”

“You didn’t look like this before.” Lydia leaned forward. “You were beautiful, Viviene. You still are. You’re just hiding her under all this.”

Beautiful.

The back of my neck went cold. That word. That word is the reason my parents are gone. I know it doesn’t make sense. I know how it sounds. But I also know what I’m doing. If being beautiful got them killed, then I won’t be beautiful anymore. It’s that simple. It’s not simple at all, but it’s what I have.

“I’m not changing clothes just to get a job,” I said, and my voice came out harder than I meant it to. “I have my reasons. Just let me be, Lydia.”

She stared at me. Pity, mostly. Some frustration. “We can’t just leave you alone. You’re all we have left of them.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine.” She stood up fast. “Stop lying to me. f**k this, Viviene. This isn’t you.”

She left. The door clicked shut, and I didn’t move for a while.

Later, I sat in my father’s old library and opened the bills. Three months of electricity. Water. I spread the money across the table and did the math. One month, maybe a little more. Uncle Theodore was right. I had to work.

I caught my reflection in the library mirror. Baggy clothes. Hair everywhere. Eyebrows I hadn’t touched since the salon stopped being a thing I did. Behind the glasses, my eyes looked gray and tired.

I remembered the hospital room. Waking up alone. No one could tell me how I got there. Not the nurses, not the police. I asked and asked, and they gave me careful, empty answers. Like I was a loose end they hoped would stop tugging.

I put on a scarf and went out. Morning was safe. I could do morning.

At the grocery store, I moved fast. I always move fast now. In the parking lot, while I was loading bags into the car, the feeling came—a prickle at the back of my neck. Someone watching.

I looked across the road. A man in a hooded jacket had stopped jogging. He was standing still, facing me. I couldn’t see his face.

He started walking toward me.

My hands shook so badly I almost dropped the keys. I got into the car, locked the door, and drove. I didn’t look back. I never look back.

---

Back home, I locked everything. The front door. The back door. The windows. Then I locked myself in my bedroom and sat on the floor with my back against the door, breathing too fast.

The tears came before I could stop them. I hated this. I hated that a man crossing the road could undo me. Lydia was right about one thing—I wasn’t like this before. I used to walk at night. I used to laugh at scary movies. Now I can’t even look at a stranger without my chest caving in.

I reached for the medicine on the bedside table. Swallowed it dry. Waited for my heart to stop punching my ribs.

When I could breathe again, I called Uncle Theodore.

“Hello, hija,” he answered, warm and quick, the way he always does.

“I wanted to ask a favor,” I said.

“Anything.”

I closed my eyes. “Can you help me find a job?”

The silence was surprised and happy. “Thank God, Viviene. Of course. I need a secretary. Come to the firm tomorrow. You won’t even need to change your clothes.”

I almost smiled. “Thank you, Uncle.”

“Call Lydia,” he said. “She’ll be glad. And, Viviene—be careful, okay? You’re alone in that house.”

I said I would. Then I hung up and sat there, the phone still in my hand, and let myself feel it. A small, cautious thing. Something close to relief.

---

The next morning, I stood outside the Kallean Financial Firm before eight. I had worn a long skirt this time, but still baggy. Still the thick glasses. My hair was loose, and I kept my head down.

Employees glanced at me as they passed. I pretended not to notice. I dressed this way for a reason. If my face had cost my parents their lives, I wasn’t going to let it hurt anyone else. It sounds dramatic. I know it does. But I don’t know how else to carry it.

Uncle Theodore arrived and brought me into his office. He looked at me, and I saw him choose his words carefully.

“Maybe slacks instead of a long skirt next time?” he said, gentle.

“Okay.”

He explained my duties. Filing, calls, scheduling. Then he walked me around and introduced me to the department heads. Everyone was polite. No one stared too long. By the time he sent me home to rest, I felt something I hadn’t felt in three years.

Normal. A little normal.

---

Lucas’s POV

I stopped jogging when I saw her.

She was across the road, loading grocery bags into her car. Her movements were quick and stiff, the way prey moves when it knows it’s being watched. Except she wasn’t prey. She was just a woman who had every reason to be afraid.

I stood still, breathing through my mouth, not my nose. That was a habit I’d built over three years. If I didn’t smell her, I could think. If I thought, I could keep my feet on the ground.

“Big brother.”

Sebastian’s voice came from behind me, light and sharp at the same time. He’d been running too, but now he was walking. Blocking my path.

“Don’t you dare follow her.”

I looked at him. “I wasn’t going to.”

“You took two steps.”

“I was going to talk to her.”

“And say what?” Sebastian crossed his arms. He looked like our father when he did that. “Hi, I’m the reason you sleep with the lights on. Let’s have coffee.”

I didn’t answer. Because he wasn’t entirely wrong.

She drove away. I watched the car until it was small, then gone. The fear rolling off her had been so strong I’d tasted it in the air—bitter, metallic, desperate. I hated that I recognized the flavor.

“We talked about this,” Sebastian said, softer now. “You’re not allowed near her. Not because of the rules. Because of her.”

“I know the rules.”

“Do you? Because the way you were moving just now, it looked like you’d forgotten a few.”

I started walking again, and he fell in beside me. “I’m not going to hurt her.”

“Then leave her alone.”

“I can’t.” The words came out before I could stop them. “I’ve tried. I’ve tried for three years. But I need to know she’s all right.”

“She’s not all right,” Sebastian said flatly. “You know that. You’re the one who carried her to the hospital.”

I flinched. He rarely said it so directly. Usually we circled around that night like it was a hole in the floor.

“I didn’t save her so she could spend the rest of her life terrified of a man in a hoodie,” I said.

“Then why did you save her?”

That was the question, wasn’t it? I’d asked myself a hundred times. I never had a clean answer. Pity? Guilt? Something older and more dangerous? She’d been beautiful, yes, but it wasn’t the beauty that stopped me. It was the way she’d looked at me when she should have been running. Like she wanted to understand me.

“I don’t know,” I said.

Sebastian shook his head and ran ahead. He was done with me for the day.

---

Later, I walked into Theodore Madrigal’s office at the Kallean Financial Firm and caught the scent immediately. Warm. Sweet. Alive.

I stopped just inside the door. She’d been here. Recently.

“Mr. Ashford.” Theodore stood and offered his hand. “I didn’t expect you today.”

“Last-minute check,” I said, shaking it. I sat down and made myself comfortable. “Have you found a secretary yet? You needed one quickly.”

“Yes, sir. My niece, Viviene Madrigal. She starts tomorrow.”

Viviene. I let the name settle. Three years of watching from a distance, and now she was walking into my building. That wasn’t chance. I didn’t believe in chance anymore.

“Your niece,” I said, keeping my voice even. “Tell me about her.”

Theodore hesitated. I could see the family loyalty warring with his instinct to please a superior. I didn’t push. I didn’t use anything—no influence, no suggestion. I just waited.

“She’s a good girl,” he said finally. “Since her parents died, she’s had a hard time. She stays inside. She’s afraid. Her father used to worry she’d become depressed. There was a boyfriend once. I think something happened…”

“That’s enough,” I said, and Theodore blinked at his own words, surprised he’d said so much.

I smiled. “I just arrived. I’ll leave you to your work.”

He nodded, still puzzled. I walked out and closed the door behind me.

In the hallway, I stood still and let the scent wash over me one more time. Not because I wanted to. Because I couldn’t help it. My jaw tightened. My hands curled at my sides.

This wasn’t going to be simple. But it was going to be something.

I’d kept my distance for three years. That distance had just collapsed. And I wasn’t sure if I was the danger she needed protecting from—or the only one who knew what was coming.