Chapter 5: A Man Who Doesn't Read

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• The Bookstore Temptation   Chapter 21 — Velvet Heat

  The night was heavy with rain, the kind that blurred city lights and turned the streets into mirrors. Julian stood by the wide windows of his penthouse, scotch in hand, the ice untouched and sweating into the glass. His reflection stared back at him, jagged, ghostly, fractured by the rain trickling down the glass.He hadn’t planned to see her today.He hadn’t planned anything at all, and that was what bothered him most.Julian Blackwood didn’t deviate. He didn’t second-guess. His days were mapped down to the hour, his nights... well, they used to be filled with distraction and empty pleasure. Now they were filled with her.Lena.Soft-spoken. Eyes like weathered poetry. That faint cinnamon smell that clung to her clothes and made his chest ache with something that felt dangerously like nostalgia.She wasn’t supposed to get to him.She wasn’t supposed to make him feel anything at all.He swallowed the scotch in a long, slow gulp, letting the burn remind him he was still in control—still

• The Bookstore Temptation   Chapter 20: A Taste of Tenderness

  The storm picked up again that evening.It wasn't the raging one or the howling one.It was the quieter variety — the sort that wept against the windows, soaking the city in a steady, silent sorrow.Julian Blackwood sat in his study, a glass of scotch in crystal resting untouched on the side of his chair, the notebook Lena had left him across his lap.He hadn't cracked it open yet.He wasn't sure that he could.The cover of leather was soft, warm in his hands.The pages inside were blank and waiting — like a door he wasn't sure he was ready to open.*What if you have nothing left to say?**What if there's nothing left inside you at all?*Julian stroked his hair back, looking at the rain-splattered window.Aria was asleep upstairs, her new books stacked neatly beside her bed. She had fallen asleep reading, the glittery cover of her latest fairy tale clutched in her small hands.She didn’t know the darkness that lived in him.The darkness that had nearly swallowed him whole.*The darkne

• The Bookstore Temptation   Chapter 19: Quiet Cracks

  The rain had stopped sometime during the night, leaving Evershore glistening under a shroud of misty morning dew. The gutters were overflowing, the streets slick, the air sharp with the scent of wet asphalt and something almost new, almost clean.But inside Julian Blackwood's penthouse apartment, the world was far from clean.It was disheveled. Noisy. *Wrong*.Julian slumped on the edge of his bed, his head in his hands, his fingers knotted in his dripping hair as if he could yank out the doubt eating away at him.What the hell was he doing?He'd kissed her. Touched her. Held her hand like a starving man clutching for something he didn't deserve.And Lena Carter—blessed, stupid Lena—had let him.She'd *wanted* him.It should have made him feel unstoppable.Instead, it left him with a sense of charlatanism.*You're poison,* the old voice spoke. *Everything you touch turns to ash.*Julian's eyes clamped shut, pushing the memories back. The cold hospital lights. The sharp odor of antisep

• The Bookstore Temptation   Chapter 18: Close Enough to Break

  The days after Julian's touch went by in a haze of unreality.Lena told herself to be normal. To keep her heart safely in back of the counters, between the lines of her favorite books.But normalcy had left with Julian that night, and everything felt different since.The bell over the door still rang. People came and went.Life — quiet and unchanging — continued.But every time the door creaked open, Lena found herself jerking her head up too quickly, heart kicking once against her chest.Looking for *him.*Always for him.And when he didn't appear, the emptiness inside her expanded.*You're foolish,* she scolded herself late at night. *You barely know him. You owe him nothing.*But the lies tasted bitter on her tongue.Because the truth was, part of her already knew him.The broken part.The lonely part.The part he attempted to conceal behind his expensive suits and iron fist.The part that resonated with something hollow within herself.And maybe — just maybe — he knew her too.---

• The Bookstore Temptation   Chapter 17: Holding Patterns

  The next few days passed like a slow, careful dance. Julian came back. Again. And again. And again. Sometimes he bought a book. Sometimes he bought coffee. Sometimes he didn't buy anything at all — just haunted the aisles with hands stuffed in the pockets of his black, expensive coats, his burning eyes finding Lena every so often like a physical presence. Each time, Lena pretended it didn't affect her. Each time, she failed miserably.It was not just the way he looked — though God knew that was bad enough, all bottled strength and suppressed power wrapped in sinful beauty.It was the way he *looked* at her. As though she was a puzzle he couldn't solve but was determined to understand.As if he didn't think he could stop himself from reaching out and taking her.And maybe… she couldn't either.---It was Wednesday afternoon when he walked in next, catching her off guard. The door bell above the door jingled and Lena's head lifted reflexively, a smile already forming on her li

• The Bookstore Temptation   Chapter 16: Pages and Promises

  Lena woke up the morning after a little earlier than usual.The sun was just rising itself above the horizon, casting long shadows on the empty street. The bookstore in early morning light seemed to be otherworldly — serene, serene, like a cathedral.She liked it best at this hour. No customers yet, no distractions. Just her, the scent of paper and ink, and the gentle thrum of old stories ready to be read aloud again.She pushed the front door open and stepped inside, savoring the creak of wood beneath her boots.And yet. today, a nagging unease clung to the atmosphere. She couldn't shake it off.She knew why.*Julian.*Even now, hours after he'd left, his presence haunted her like a ghost — a shadow on the periphery, a whisper between the lines.Lena ran her hand along the wrinkled spines of the books on the nearest shelf, grounding herself.She couldn't afford to waste time letting her mind wander. She'd work to get done. Deliveries to sort. Displays to build.And most of all — wall