Chapter Seven
525 Words
The café smelled of espresso and baked bread, warm and alive with chatter.
Gracie sat at a corner table, laptop open, earbuds in, fingers flying over the keys.
She’d promised herself she’d finish an article before ordering another coffee, but her eyes kept wandering to the people drifting in and out—the college kids, the exhausted parents, the couples who couldn’t seem to keep their hands to themselves.
Her lips curved in a dry smirk. Human interaction:
Exhibit A.
She was so focused on mocking everyone in the room that she didn’t notice the shadow until it fell across her table.
“Mind if I sit?”
The voice was deep. Smooth. Commanding in a way that wasn’t really a question.
She looked up—and nearly forgot how to breathe.
The man standing there was tall. Ridiculously tall. Broad shoulders filled out a dark jacket, his presence swallowing the space around him. His skin was warm bronze, his jaw sharp, his dark eyes locked on her like she was the only person in the room.
Gracie blinked, recovering fast. Sarcasm was always her shield. “There are literally 5 empty tables, and you want this one? Pretty Bold.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “I like this view better.”
She arched a brow. “Wow. Subtle. Do you practice lines like that in the mirror, or is this natural talent?”
Jeremiah sat down without waiting for permission, leaning forward slightly, elbows resting on the table. “Name’s Jeremiah.”
Gracie hesitated. She didn’t usually give out personal information to strangers—especially ones who looked like they could snap a man in half with their bare hands—but something in his gaze was steady. Unnerving.
“Gracie,” she said finally, her tone cautious but firm.
His lips brushed her name like it was a secret. “Gracie.”
Her stomach flipped, and she hated herself for it. She didn’t do this. Didn’t get flustered by men, especially not strangers with dangerous smiles.
“Well, Jeremiah,”
she said, with nonchalance.
“If this is your way of trying to pick someone up in a coffee shop, you’re about ten clichés too late. That ship sailed in 2012.”
He chuckled, low and rich.
“Not picking you up. Just… intrigued.”
“By what?”
“By you.”
Gracie rolled her eyes, but her pulse betrayed her, quickening under his gaze. She reached for her mug, needing something to hold onto.
“Intrigued is just code for bored.”
“Not with you,”
Jeremiah said simply, as if it were fact.
For a second, their eyes held—hers sharp and skeptical, his dark and consuming.
And in that crowded café, surrounded by people and noise, Gracie felt the faintest shiver run through her. A warning, maybe. Or something far more dangerous.
She didn’t know yet that this was no chance meeting.
That thia man had already memorized her routines, her address, her life.
All she knew was that a stranger with eyes like shadows had just stepped into her world.
And he wasn’t leaving.
- Writer
