Inside the warmth of the chopper, Alec remained seated, his gaze fixed through the glass at the figure struggling against the wind outside. Melissa. Standing there, her hair whipping across her face, her arms trembling as she clutched the weight of his bags, trying to hold herself together in the biting cold.
A slow, cold smirk curved Alec’s lips. He wasn’t in a rush. He wasn’t planning to help. He was watching—no, savoring.
Every shiver that wracked her frame, every flinch against the wind, every silent cry for mercy—he absorbed them all like a silent punishment she had earned in his eyes.
He recalled her raised voice from last night, the way she stood up to him, her eyes burning with defiance, throwing words like knives straight into the depths of wounds he’d spent years burying benea
