Chapter 12

Emery Quinn

I couldn't breathe right.

Not because the club was too loud or too crowded or too hot—though it was all of those things. The bass thrummed through the floors and walls like a living heartbeat, vibrating through my ribcage and settling somewhere deep in my chest. Bodies pressed against bodies in the dim, strobing light, a sea of movement that should have been liberating, should have made me feel anonymous and free. The air hung thick with expensive perfume.

But none of that was why my lungs felt constricted, why each breath came shallow and quick.

It was because his gaze was still on me.

Killian Vale sat in the shadows like a storm that hadn't yet struck, all sharp lines and colder silence, his stare locked on me with the kind of intensity that made my skin itch and my blood rush in ways I didn't want to examine. Even through the haze of smoke and shifting lights, I could feel the weight of his attention like a physical thing. It pressed against me, wrapped around me, claimed me in a way that made every nerve ending stand at attention.

He hadn't blinked.

Not once.

Killian had been there then, occupying that velvet booth like it was a throne, and he was there now, motionless as a predator watching prey from the tall grass.

He didn't look away even as I turned slightly, hoping maybe—just maybe—if I avoided his eyes, the weight of his presence would lift off my chest. If I could pretend I hadn't seen him, pretend this was still just a normal Saturday night out with a kind, handsome man who wanted nothing more than to make me smile, maybe the spell would break. Maybe I could go back to being just another face in the crowd, another body moving to the rhythm, another person trying to forget the complications of their everyday life for a few precious hours.

But it didn't work.

The feeling didn't dissipate.

It stayed.

Like a chain wrapped around my throat.

Like a silent demand I couldn't decipher but somehow understood in my bones.

The strobing lights caught the sharp angles of his face intermittently—the strong line of his jaw, the aristocratic slope of his nose, the full mouth that I'd watched form words in boardroom meetings but had never seen curve into anything resembling warmth. Tonight, that mouth was set in a hard line, neither smiling nor frowning, just... watching. Calculating. There was something almost feral in the way he sat so perfectly still while chaos swirled around him, like he was the eye of a hurricane that could devastate everything in its path with a single movement.

Zayn's voice snapped me out of it, cutting through the spell like a lifeline thrown to a drowning person.

"Hey..." he leaned in slightly, his breath warm against my ear as he spoke over the pounding music. His grip was still gentle around my waist, fingers splayed across the silk of my dress in a touch that should have been comforting but somehow felt exposed under that distant, burning stare. "You okay?"

I blinked up at him, forcing my face into what I hoped was a convincing smile. Zayn's features were kind in the low light, concern creasing the corners of his dark eyes as he studied my expression. He was handsome in an approachable way—the kind of man who opened doors and remembered birthdays and would never make you feel like prey being stalked through shadows. Everything about him was safe, normal, uncomplicated.

Everything Killian Vale was not.

"Yeah. Sorry. Got lost in thought."

It wasn't entirely a lie. My thoughts were certainly lost, tangled up in questions I had no business asking and feelings I had no right to examine. Why was he here? Why was he watching me like that? And why did some treacherous part of me respond to that intense scrutiny with a flutter of something that felt dangerously close to anticipation?

"You got real quiet." Zayn's thumb traced a small circle against my waist, a gesture meant to be soothing that only made me more aware of how visible we were from that shadowy booth across the room.

"Just a little tired." Another lie, but easier than the truth. I wasn't tired—I was wired, every nerve ending singing with an awareness I couldn't shake.

"Wanna head downstairs for a bit? There's a lounge level. Quieter. We could get drinks and sit."

I hesitated, not because I didn't want to escape—God, I wanted nothing more than to put some distance between myself and those watchful eyes—but because I could still feel him watching me. Like his gaze was a physical touch, fingers pressed against the back of my neck, a brand burning into my skin that marked me as something I didn't understand and wasn't sure I wanted to.

The rational part of my mind screamed that this was ridiculous. Killian Vale was my boss, nothing more. We had a professional relationship that consisted of boardroom meetings and quarterly reviews and the occasional terse email about project deadlines. He had never shown the slightest personal interest in me beyond my ability to meet his exacting standards, had never so much as complimented my work without following it immediately with a suggestion for improvement.

But the way he was looking at me now... there was nothing professional about it.

Still, I nodded, eager for any excuse to escape that suffocating attention. "That sounds perfect."

Zayn took my hand and guided me gently through the crowd, his fingers intertwining with mine in a gesture that should have felt natural but somehow seemed performative under that distant surveillance. The music thudded around us like a physical force, the lights flashing and spinning overhead like artificial stars caught in a cosmic dance. Bodies pressed close as we navigated through the throng—a blonde in a barely-there dress grinding against her partner, a group of men in expensive suits laughing too loudly over glasses of top-shelf liquor, couples lost in each other and the rhythm.

My heels clicked on the polished floor as I moved, but I didn't feel my steps. Every movement felt choreographed, observed, judged by an audience of one whose opinion shouldn't matter but somehow did.

I felt his stare.

Dragging across my skin like fingertips.

Branding me with invisible marks.

Claiming something I hadn't offered and didn't know how to give.

I made the mistake of glancing back once, just before we turned a corner toward the stairs that would take us to the lower level. Some masochistic impulse made me look over my shoulder, made me seek out those eyes that had been boring into me all evening.

Killian hadn't moved.

He was still seated at that velvet booth like a king watching his domain, one hand wrapped around what looked like a glass of neat whiskey, the other resting on the table with fingers that I knew could sign contracts worth millions and destroy careers with equal ease. The low light caught the expensive fabric of his charcoal suit, tailored to perfection and probably worth more than most people made in a month. He looked like what he was—power personified, wealth and influence wrapped in a devastatingly attractive package.

And he was still watching me.

Still hadn't blinked.

The expression on his face was unreadable in the dim light, but something in his posture—the rigid set of his shoulders, the way his jaw clenched almost imperceptibly—suggested barely controlled tension. Like he was holding himself back from something, restraining an impulse that might prove dangerous if released.

I was the trespasser in his carefully ordered world.

The variable that didn't fit his calculations.

The problem he couldn't solve with logic and spreadsheets and the ruthless efficiency that had built his empire.

I don't know why he was there, or why he looked at me like that—like I was a puzzle he was determined to solve, a challenge he couldn't walk away from. But something about it, about him, wasn't professional. It wasn't polite or appropriate or any of the things our working relationship should have been.

It was possessive.

Raw and primal in a way that made my pulse quicken and my breath catch.

Like I was doing something wrong just by letting someone else's hands touch my waist, just by smiling at another man's jokes and accepting another man's attention. As if by being here, by existing outside the carefully controlled environment of his office building, I was violating some unspoken rule I hadn't known existed.

As if someone was trying to touch what belonged to him.

Which was insane.

Completely, utterly insane.

Because I didn't belong to anyone, least of all to a man who saw me as nothing more than another employee, another cog in his corporate machine. I was free to go where I wanted, to spend time with whomever I chose, to live my life outside the confines of quarterly reports and business meetings.

Especially not to him.