Obsessed

Chapter One – The Photograph

( Selena pov )

The first thing they never tell you about power is how quiet it is. It doesn’t shout. It hums , beneath chandeliers, between glasses raised in false toasts. I’d never belonged in rooms like this. Yet here I was, hiding behind a camera, pretending to be invisible. My press badge was fake, my dress borrowed, but my curiosity was real and that was what would ruin me.

I came for a story. Instead, I found him. Dominic Moreau. A name, people spoke like a rumor. Billionaire. Reformer. Monster. No one seemed sure which one he truly was. The first thing I noticed wasn’t his face, but the stillness that surrounded him so completely it felt like gravity. He didn’t move like the others. He didn’t need to. People leaned toward him without realizing they did. I should’ve looked away. Instead, I raised the camera.

The flash never came. Just the soft click of the shutter, a sound so small it should’ve vanished in the noise but it didn’t. His head turned, eyes cutting through the room like a blade dipped in calm. For a breath, everything else disappeared. The music, the chatter, the world. Only that looks sharp, assessing, almost curious. Then, the faintest ghost of a smile. A smile that said I see you.

I lowered the camera, heart pounding. By the time I looked up again, he was gone. I left soon after, the night air colder than I remembered. Paris glittered below, gold and merciless. In my bag, the photograph felt heavier than the camera itself. When I reached home, I opened the file, zoomed in, and saw more than I’d expected a man handing another an unmarked envelope, their eyes wary, their smiles too smooth. It was evidence. Or danger. Or both.

I hesitated before saving it. But I did. Because I always chase the truth even when it doesn’t want to be found. Dominic Power isn’t noisy . It’s the ability to silence a room without saying a word. The gala was tedious, the same politicians whispering promises they couldn’t afford to keep, the same investors laughing too loud to hide their fear. I attended only because absence invites suspicion, and I’ve learned that curiosity is far more dangerous than hate.

Until tonight, that curiosity hadn’t had a face. I felt her before I saw her that subtle shift in the air, the way attention brushes against your skin. Then came the sound I can’t mistake: a shutter. Quick. Controlled. Reckless. I turned. She froze. A woman behind a lens, young, tense, beautiful in the way honesty always is raw, unguarded, too real for a place like this. Her camera trembled slightly, but her eyes didn’t. She was afraid, yes, but she was also looking.

Not like the others who wanted to be seen. She wanted to see. My men shifted at the edges of the crowd, waiting for a signal. I raised a hand just enough for them to still. I didn’t need chaos. I needed to understand who she was and what exactly she’d captured. When our eyes met, I saw it in her expression realization. The moment truth becomes dangerous And for the first time in years, I felt something unexpected. Curiosity.

She lowered the camera and pretended to vanish into the crowd, but I never lose sight of what interests me. Within minutes, her name appeared on my phone. Selena Ward. Freelancer. No affiliations worth worrying about. Except she had managed to photograph something she shouldn’t have. When the gala ended, I didn’t leave with the ministers or the smiling liars. I stayed long enough to look once more toward where she had stood, then stepped into the night, the city lights bleeding across the wet pavement.

My driver asked, “Do you want us to retrieve the footage?” I looked out the window at the reflection of the Eiffel Tower, fractured in the rain. “No,” I said quietly. “Not yet.” Because I wanted to see what she would do with it. Because some storms deserve to begin slowly.Selena

The city felt different that night, quieter , like it was holding its breath. By the time I reached my apartment, the adrenaline had faded, leaving a strange stillness behind it. I told myself to stop thinking about him. About the photo. About the way he looked at me as if he already knew my name. But obsession is quiet too. It begins like a whisper in the mind. I kicked off my shoes, dropped my bag, and turned on the light. Something felt wrong almost immediately. The curtains moved though the windows were shut. The air carried a faint trace of cologne, expensive , masculine, nothing I owned.

Then I saw it. My laptop lay open on the table, the screen black but still warm to the touch. The camera bag I’d left zipped was half open. Inside, the memory card was gone. My throat tightened. On the desk sat a single photograph printed, smooth, the edges still curled from heat. My photograph. The one by Dominic Moreau. Across it, in small, deliberate handwriting, were three words: Forget the truth. My heartbeat drowned out the rest of the world. I lifted the photo with trembling fingers, flipped it over, and saw one more line scrawled across the back smaller, fainter, like a whisper meant only for me. You’re being watched.

Something crashed outside a door, a shout, a motorcycle engine cutting through the silence. I moved toward the window but stopped myself. If someone was really out there, I didn’t want them to see me looking back. I should’ve called the police. Or my editor. Or anyone. But I didn’t. Because beneath the fear, a darker thought flickered.cWho had written it? And why did I feel, somehow, that it wasn’t a threat

But an invitation? Dominic She didn’t call the police. Good. Most people do when they feel the edge of danger brush their skin. She didn’t. She froze, then thought. That difference between reaction and reflection is what keeps certain people alive. I watched her through the live feed on the monitor beside me, her small apartment glowing in shades of gray. I never enjoyed surveillance; it was too clinical, too easy. But tonight, I found myself studying her movements as though they were art.

The way she pressed her back against the wall before turning on the light. The cautious glance toward the door. The pause when she saw the photograph I’d left behind. Fear flickered across her face, but there was something else layered beneath it: an ache, a question, a spark of defiance. I’d seen that look before. Once. A lifetime ago. My security chief, Victor, stood near the monitors. “She’ll talk,” he said simply. “They always do.” I turned my gaze toward him, slow and calm. “She won’t.” He hesitated. “And if she does?” “Then she becomes mine before she can.”

Victor didn’t ask what that meant. He’d learned not to. When he left, I stayed watching her, alone in the dark room filled with the hum of machines and rain tapping softly against the windows. I should’ve erased the threat she posed. That was how I kept order swift, silent, without regret. But the truth is, I wanted to see how far she’d go.

There was something about her, something that didn’t fit inside the patterns I’d built my empire on. The way she’d looked at me, not with greed or lust, but with recognition. As if she saw the man buried beneath the name. And that made her dangerous in a way no enemy had ever been. I leaned back in the chair, her image frozen on the screen, eyes wide, hands trembling, still beautiful in her fear. “Soon, Selena,” I murmured to the empty room. “Let’s see what you do when the truth knocks back