The Twins Obsession Consumed Me

Chapter 7: His Calculations

Kian’s POV

The numbers were fine. The presentation slides were flawless. My team spoke in measured tones, each line rehearsed, each phrase honed to perfection. But I heard none of it.

I was staring at her name.

It appeared in the report like a splinter under the skin: Amara Vance – projected risk variable. Cold, technical language to describe a woman who had once undone me with a single glance. The analyst had marked her as a “potential PR complication,” her speech last week still stirring up commentary online. I scrolled through the metrics absently, but all I could see was her face under those stage lights, wild, furious, defiant.

The boardroom lights were too bright. The table too long. My patience too thin.

“Sir?” My assistant’s voice broke through the static. “Should we proceed with the press response?”

“Yes,” I said flatly, then stood, loosening my tie. “And cancel my next meeting.”

There was a pause. I could feel the confusion ripple through the room, but no one questioned me. They never did. That was the benefit of being feared.

I left before anyone could follow, the doors closing behind me with a muted click. Silence.

For years, I had convinced myself that I was beyond her. I had buried that particular ghost under work, profit margins, and strategic acquisitions. But ghosts have a way of clawing their way out when you least expect them. Her face in that spotlight had awakened something ugly and beautiful all at once.

I poured myself a drink in my office, the city sprawled beneath me like a living organism. Lights glittered, people moved like currents, all following their programmed routines. And somewhere out there, she was breathing the same air, unaware that I was thinking of her again.

Unaware that I had never truly stopped.

My mind betrayed me, conjuring images of her that I had no right to remember. The way she used to tuck her hair behind her ear when she was nervous. The sound of her laugh. The quiet confidence that had always both irritated and fascinated me.

Back in college, I had told myself I hated her. That she was reckless. Immature. But the truth was simpler, more dangerous. I had wanted her. Always had. Even when she had chosen Kairo instead of me.

Especially then.

Jealousy had been the beginning. Obsession had done the rest.

I set the glass down with more force than necessary, watching the amber liquid slosh against the sides. My reflection in the window looked calm, controlled. A lie, as always.

I remembered the years after she disappeared from my life. I had followed her quietly. Not in person. Never that. But late at night, when the world felt smaller, I would find myself typing her name into f*******:.

Her profile was private, but sometimes she posted publicly. Fragments of her life. Quotes. Pictures of protests and rallies. Her hair shorter one year, longer the next. I told myself it was casual curiosity, nothing more. Yet I remembered each detail with an accuracy that disgusted me.

That was the thing about obsession. You could starve it, bury it, ignore it for a decade, but the hunger never truly dies. It waits. It listens for the sound of her voice on a stage and wakes up roaring.

And now, I had her attention again. Even if it was wrapped in anger.

I sank into the leather chair, fingers steepled. Anger was better than indifference. It meant there was still something to pull on, still a thread connecting us through all the years of silence. I could work with that.

Business was strategy. Attraction could be too.

If she would not come willingly, then I would make her an offer she could not refuse. Not through charm or nostalgia, but through leverage. Through the one thing I had always understood better than anyone: control.

She wanted to change the system. Fine. Let her do it through me. I would give her funding, exposure, platforms, visibility. I would make her dependent on me, tethered by success she could not achieve without my name behind hers.

And when she finally realized that her independence was an illusion, when she saw that every door opened only because I turned the key, she would hate me again. But she would also need me.

That was the perfect equilibrium.

I leaned back, a cold satisfaction spreading through me. The plan formed itself with mechanical precision. A media contract, crafted under one of our subsidiaries. It would appear neutral, almost philanthropic. She would see a chance to grow her platform. She would think she was winning.

But she would be walking straight into my orbit.

The irony was almost poetic.

I opened my laptop, drafting the initial memo. My fingers hesitated for only a moment before typing her name again. Amara Vance. The letters looked foreign and intimate all at once.

The last time I had written her name was on a crumpled letter I never sent. That version of me had wanted to explain, to apologize. This one wanted to own.

A knock at the door interrupted my thoughts. It was my assistant again. “Sir, the board is asking if you’ll be attending the investor dinner tonight.”

“Tell them I have a private engagement,” I said, still typing.

She nodded and slipped away.

Private engagement. The words almost made me laugh. If only she knew.

Hours later, when the city had gone quiet, I closed the laptop and stood by the window again. Somewhere out there, she was sleeping, maybe restless from the confrontation, maybe dreaming of something else entirely.

And I wondered what her dreams looked like now.

Did she ever think of me?

Did she ever imagine the version of me who had once waited outside her debate hall just to catch a glimpse of her walking home? Or the version who watched from a distance when she laughed with my brother?

I wanted her to see me now. To see what she had created.

The bitterness that had once defined my ambition had a shape, a pulse, and her name carved into it. Every company I built, every deal I crushed, every empire I expanded—it had all been a monument to a wound that never healed.

And now, fate had placed her back within reach.

I smiled faintly, the kind that had nothing to do with joy. “You won’t walk away this time,” I murmured to the empty room.

It wasn’t a threat. It was a vow.

Because I would make sure every road she took curved back to me.

And when she finally realized it, when she understood that she had never truly escaped, I would be there—waiting, as I always had.

Watching. Calculating.

Patient, but not forever.

This time, she would belong to me.