That irritation won't die

The office felt too quiet.

I hated quiet.

Silence gave thoughts room to breathe, and tonight, my thoughts were doing far too much of that.

I stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, one hand in my pocket, the other gripping a glass of untouched whiskey. The city sprawled beneath me, lights glittering like a living organism that bent and breathed at my command. Everything I owned. Everything I controlled.

And yet none of it was calming me.

I replayed the scene again—unwillingly.

The way she froze.

The way her breath caught when I asked who she was talking to.

That split second before she tried to recover.

People didn’t freeze like that unless they were hiding something.

I took a slow sip of the whiskey, the burn doing nothing to settle the irritation coiled tight in my chest. I had interrogated executives, ruined competitors, dismantled empires built by men twice my age without my pulse ever spiking like this.

So why did a bodyguard—my bodyguard—have my nerves stretched thin?

“She’s an employee,” I muttered to myself, setting the glass down harder than necessary. “Nothing more.”

Yet the memory of her voice refused to leave me.

Not the words.

The tone.

Soft. Intimate. Nothing like the clipped, professional cadence she used around me. That softness hadn’t been meant for my ears, and that was precisely why it bothered me.

I hated women who lied.

I hated women who used emotion as leverage.

And I hated that my first instinct hadn’t been anger—but curiosity.

I moved back to my desk and sat down, rolling my shoulders as if shaking off a weight. The paperwork in front of me blurred as my thoughts drifted back, uninvited, to six years ago.

A hotel room.

Low lights.

A woman whose face I could never fully remember—only fragments. Heat. Nails against skin. A voice breaking when she said my name.

I clenched my jaw.

I had buried that memory for a reason.

It was a mistake. A lapse in control. One night fueled by alcohol and recklessness, long before the company went public, before the expectations, before the walls I had built around myself.

I didn’t do attachments.

I didn’t do softness.

And I certainly didn’t do women who lingered in my head.

My gaze drifted to the closed door of the office.

Anna.

Anne.

Whatever name she was using.

She moved through the estate like she belonged there—too comfortable, too steady. She didn’t flinch under my gaze the way most women did. Didn’t try to please. Didn’t cry when I snapped.

That alone made her dangerous.

I leaned back in my chair, fingers steepled, eyes narrowing.

“She doesn’t recognize you,” I told myself flatly. “If she did, she would’ve reacted.”

And yet…

That hesitation.

That panic she tried—and failed—to mask.

I stood abruptly, pacing the length of the office. My footsteps echoed softly against the polished floor as irritation sharpened into something darker.

Why did it matter if she had a lover?

Why did the thought sit wrong in my chest?

“She’s none of your concern,” I snapped internally. “Her personal life is irrelevant.”

Then why did the image of her whispering I love you feel like a violation?

I stopped pacing.

The answer unsettled me more than I liked.

Because control mattered to me.

Because unpredictability irritated me.

Because somewhere, deep beneath logic and discipline, my instincts were whispering that Anna Smith was not what she claimed to be.

And instincts had never failed me.

I pressed the intercom.

“Get me everything on her again,” I ordered my assistant coolly when he answered. “Dig deeper. I want gaps. Connections. Anything that doesn’t add up.”

“Yes, sir.”

The line went dead.

I exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand over my face.

This was ridiculous.

She was a bodyguard. A hired professional. I had enemies, rivals, threats that required my attention. Not a woman who looked at me like she was constantly bracing for impact.

And yet…

I could still see her expression when Caleb complimented her.

The way she stiffened.

The way relief crossed her face when I left.

That relief stung more than I cared to admit.

Why?

Why did it matter whether she cared what I thought?

I scoffed under my breath.

“Get it together, Zayne.”

I returned to my desk and forced myself to review the day’s reports, but the words swam uselessly on the page. Every few lines, my mind drifted back to her—her posture, her discipline, the way she stood like she was always guarding something invisible.

Not me.

Something else.

And that thought stayed with me long after the office lights dimmed, long after the city quieted, and long after I convinced myself that whatever was stirring inside me was nothing more than irritation.

I was wrong.