MY HEART ROB.

MY HEARTROB 💓

CHAPTER TWO

"Everything has a dual purpose, Elara," he murmured. He reached out, his hand hovering just inches from her waist as he pointed toward the horizon. "Even you. You act like a pillar of stone, but I see the fire in your eyes when you look at these blueprints. You don't just want to build. You want to create. But you’re scared of the mess."

"I am not scared of anything," she lied.

"We'll see," Julian said with a slow, devastating smirk.

Over the next few months, Julian became the "heartrob" she never saw coming. It wasn't a sudden fall; it was a slow, agonizing erosion of her defenses. He was everywhere. He would show up at her office at midnight with cartons of Thai food because he knew she’d forgotten to eat. He would send her sketches of wild jasmine vines curling around her obsidian pillars, turning her sterile designs into something that breathed.

One humid Tuesday, they were trapped in the site trailer during a sudden Midwestern deluge. The rain hammered against the metal roof, creating a private, noisy world. The power had flickered out, leaving them in the amber glow of a single battery-powered lamp.

"Why do you do it?" Julian asked softly. He was sitting on the edge of her drafting table, his long legs stretched out.

"Do what?" Elara asked, her eyes focused intently on a blueprint she had already memorized.

"Hide. You build these magnificent things so people will look at them, but you never let them look at you."

Elara finally looked up. The tension that had been building between them for months was suddenly a physical weight. "I like my life, Julian. It’s organized. It’s safe."

"Safe is just another word for dead," he whispered. He stood up and walked toward her.

Elara backed away until her heels hit the edge of a filing cabinet. Julian didn't stop until he was inches away. He placed his hands on the cabinet on either side of her, pinning her in. The heat radiating from his body was intoxicating.

"Julian..." she started, but the word died in her throat as his gaze dropped to her lips.

"You've been driving me crazy since the day I met you," he said, his voice a low, gravelly hum. "With your perfect hair and your perfect suits and that perfect mouth that always says the wrong things."

He leaned in, his lips grazing the sensitive skin of her neck. Elara’s eyes drifted shut, her hands reaching out to find purchase on his shoulders. The fabric of his shirt was rough under her palms, but the man beneath it was solid and warm.

When he finally kissed her, it wasn't a gentle suggestion. It was an explosion. It was the taste of years of loneliness being wiped away in a single, desperate moment. Julian’s hands moved to her waist, lifting her onto the desk. Blueprints, pens, and rulers clattered to the floor, but Elara didn't care. For the first time in her life, she welcomed the chaos.

The air in the trailer grew thick and heavy. Every touch was a revelation. Julian handled her with a mixture of reverence and raw hunger, his hands mapping her curves as if he were discovering a new landscape. He pulled back for a second, his forehead resting against hers, both of them breathing hard.

"Still want to follow the specs?" he murmured, his eyes dark with a desire so honest it made Elara’s heart ache.

"Screw the specs," she whispered, pulling him back down to her.

By the time the storm passed and the North Star project was completed, Elara was a different woman. The conservatory was a masterpiece—a fusion of her sharp, brilliant glass and Julian’s wild, lush greenery. It was the talk of the architectural world, but for Elara, it was simply the place where she learned to breathe.

On the night of the opening gala, amidst the champagne and the socialites, Julian found her on the balcony. He wasn't wearing a tie, and his hair was as messy as ever. He slipped his arm around her waist, pulling her back against his chest.

"I have a project in the mountains," he said into her ear. "Building a sanctuary for endangered orchids. It’s going to be muddy, difficult, and completely off the grid."

Elara turned in his arms, her heart full of a rhythm she no longer tried to control. She looked at julian, the man who had ruined her straight lines and given her a life worth living.

"I hope you have room for an architect," she said, a real, unshielded smile breaking across her face.

Julian laughed and kissed her under the stars they had finally learned to reach. "I wouldn't dream of building it without you."