Chapter 3 – The Hunter Watches
1798 Words
(Alexander POV)
I saw her the moment she walked through the sliding glass doors of Blackwell Fashion HQ, and something taut inside me snapped. Adelaide—no, Savannah Wills now—moved with a precision and confidence that hadn’t been there two years ago, yet every subtle gesture betrayed her, a flicker of the girl I had burned into memory the night she fled my penthouse. She carried herself like a storm on the verge of breaking: beautiful, poised, but undeniably restless.
I stood by the edge of the executive gallery, my fingers drumming on the polished mahogany railing, observing her like a predator sizing up prey. The heels clicking on the marble echoed in the cavernous hall, a rhythm that pulled my attention as if it were a siren song I had no intention of resisting. Every glance she cast, every tilt of her chin, every micro-expression was a reminder of the fire I had almost held—and let slip.
I could see the subtle tension in her shoulders, the way her hands curled around the portfolio she carried. She was cautious, calculated, yet unaware of how fully I had memorized every nuance of her movement—the way her eyes darted slightly when she was nervous, the slight tremor of her fingers when she thought no one was watching. I had watched her, studied her, obsessed over her in the two years she had disappeared from my life. And now she was mine to watch again, to provoke, to control, if only I willed it.
“Mr. Blackwell?” a timid voice broke my reverie. It was Clara, the receptionist. Her presence barely registered as I focused entirely on Savannah.
“Yes,” I replied, my gaze never leaving hers.
She faltered under my stare, clearly unused to someone observing her with this kind of intensity. A corner of my mouth twitched with satisfaction. That look—the mixture of fear, curiosity, and unacknowledged desire—was exactly what I had wanted to see. She was still human. Still vulnerable. And still, dangerously, mine.
I had known she was back for three weeks before she ever looked up and saw me.
That was the truth I hadn’t allowed myself to examine too closely.
Her name appeared in a quarterly report first—buried under regional design hires. Savannah Wills. Different city. Different division. Same handwriting in the margins of her submitted sketches. The same aggressive lines. The same refusal to soften her vision for approval.
I recognized her immediately.
People think obsession announces itself with urgency. With recklessness. With hunger.
They’re wrong.
Obsession is patient.
I didn’t call her.
I didn’t summon her.
I didn’t move a single piece until I understood exactly who she had become without me.
I watched.
Her performance reviews.
Her design risk scores.
Her late-night access logs.
She worked like someone afraid of being disposable.
That told me everything.
The night I finally stepped into her studio wasn’t coincidence. It was choreography.
I timed it for when she’d be alone. When exhaustion would have stripped her defenses thin. When instinct would speak louder than logic.
When she looked up and saw me, the shock on her face wasn’t just recognition.
It was realization.
She understood—too late—that this meeting had weight.
“Still here, Ms. Wills?” I said, as if I hadn’t memorized her schedule.
Her pulse betrayed her before her mouth did.
“Yes. Just finishing up.”
Lie.
I circled her desk slowly, deliberately keeping my distance. Letting her fill the silence with meaning. I wanted her unsettled—not threatened. Not yet.
“You’ve changed,” I said.
“So have you.”
Another lie. I was exactly who I’d always been. She was the variable.
“You didn’t reach out,” she said suddenly. Accusation buried beneath restraint.
I smiled faintly. “Neither did you.”
That landed.
She straightened. “I didn’t think you’d remember me.”
I leaned closer then—just enough. “That was your mistake.”
The truth hovered unspoken:
I had searched for her after she ran.
I had stopped only when it became clear she wanted to be lost.
And I had never forgiven her for that.
“I don’t repeat mistakes,” I continued quietly. “And I don’t allow unfinished things to exist in my orbit.”
Her hands clenched.
“I’m not unfinished,” she said.
“No,” I agreed. “You’re unresolved.”
That was the moment the dynamic shifted.
She wasn’t reacting anymore. She was fighting.
And I admired her for it.
“I won’t be pulled back into whatever that night was,” she said. “I have a life.”
“I know,” I replied calmly. “A man who loves you safely. A career that’s just starting to recognize you.”
Her eyes narrowed. “How do you know that?”
There it was.
The crack.
“Because,” I said, straightening, reclaiming my distance, “I don’t invest without research.”
I let that settle. Let the implications bloom.
Fear.
Anger.
Something dangerously close to desire.
“You planned this,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“And what exactly do you want?”
I looked at her then—not as prey, not as conquest, but as the one thing that had ever walked away from me and survived.
“I want,” I said carefully, “to see whether you’ll run again.”
Silence.
I stepped back, already ending the encounter. “Get some rest, Ms. Wills. You’re going to be very busy.”
As I left, I knew something she didn’t yet understand:
I hadn’t transferred her because I couldn’t forget her.
I transferred her because I wanted to see if she’d still choose herself—
—or choose me.
And this time, I wouldn’t let her disappear.
- Writer
- chap_listContents
- likeADD