Chapter 13

Emery Quinn

His body blocked the light—and the air.

Killian Vale stood in front of me like a shadow given shape, carved in restraint and fury. One hand braced high on the wall beside my head, the other planted low, his palm barely inches from the curve of my hip. He wasn’t touching me, not exactly, but he didn’t have to. His presence alone was enough to erase thought. Enough to make the cool wall at my back feel like it had turned to stone.

The plaster was rough against my shoulder blades, each imperfection pressing into my skin through the thin fabric of my dress. The wall was cold—so cold it should have been uncomfortable, but instead it felt like the only thing keeping me grounded in a reality that had suddenly shifted beyond recognition. How had I ended up here? How had a simple night out turned into this suffocating confrontation?

Minutes ago, I’d been on the dance floor, lost in the rhythm, letting Zayn’s hands guide me through movements that felt like freedom. The music had been loud enough to drown out thought, the crowd thick enough to disappear into. For the first time in weeks, I’d felt like myself again—not the careful, professional version I wore to the office, but the real me. The one who could laugh without calculating the consequences, who could move without wondering if someone was watching.

Now I was trapped—no, cornered—by the one man I’d been trying to avoid all weekend. The one man who had the power to unravel me with a single look.

He didn’t speak at first.

Didn’t move.

And neither did I.

The silence stretched between us like a taut wire, ready to snap at the slightest provocation. I could hear my own heartbeat thundering in my ears, could feel the rapid rise and fall of my chest as I struggled to maintain some semblance of composure. This wasn’t how I’d imagined our next encounter would go. Instead, I was pressed against a wall like a cornered animal, my carefully constructed defenses crumbling under the weight of his presence.

The hallway stretched endlessly in both directions, but it felt like the walls were closing in. The space between us crackled with an energy I couldn’t name, couldn’t understand, couldn’t control. It was dangerous and intoxicating, like standing too close to a fire—you knew you should step back, but the warmth was too alluring, too necessary.

The hallway was dim, bathed in muted gold from a flickering sconce that cast dancing shadows across the burgundy wallpaper. The light played tricks with my vision, making Killian seem larger, more imposing, more real than he had any right to be. The fixture was old, probably original to the building, and it hummed softly with electrical current that seemed to echo the tension thrumming through my veins.

Distant music throbbed from the other side of the wall like a fading heartbeat—a bass line that seemed to sync with the pulse hammering in my throat. I could hear fragments of conversation, bursts of laughter, the clink of glasses, all the sounds of people having a good time. It felt like another world, one I’d been part of just moments ago but now seemed impossibly far away.

But in here? It was just us.

Just me and the man who’d been haunting my thoughts for weeks, who’d invaded my dreams and turned my carefully ordered world upside down.

His eyes devoured every inch of me—not like a man admiring a woman, but like a fire assessing what it would burn first. They traced the line of my collarbone, exposed by the low neckline of my dress, lingered on the pulse point at the base of my throat, then dropped to where the fabric clung to my curves before slowly, deliberately, traveling back up to meet my gaze. The intensity of his stare made my skin flush, as if he were actually touching me with those long, elegant fingers that were currently clenched at his sides.

This dress was for my confidence, for the way it made me feel powerful and beautiful. But under his scrutiny, I felt exposed, vulnerable, like he could see through the fabric to the woman beneath—the one who wasn’t as strong as she pretended to be, who wasn’t as immune to him as she claimed.

I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly parched. When had breathing become so difficult?

“Mr. Killian,” I whispered, and the name felt foreign leaving my mouth. Too formal. Too small for the way he loomed over me, consuming all the oxygen in the narrow space. In the office, the title created distance, maintained the professional barrier we both seemed to need. Here, in this dim hallway with his body caging me against the wall, it felt like a joke.

“What are you doing?”

My voice trembled despite me trying to steady it. I hated how breathless I sounded, how young and uncertain. This wasn’t the composed professional I’d worked hard to become. This was something else entirely—something raw and honest and terrifying.

His reply came like frost sliding along skin, each word precisely enunciated.

“Exactly. That’s what I want to know.”

The words were measured, controlled, but I could hear the tension beneath them. See it in the way his shoulders were rigid, the way his free hand had curled into a fist at his side. The careful mask he wore in the office was slipping, revealing glimpses of something darker, more complex beneath.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

The question hung between us, loaded with implications I wasn’t ready to examine. His tone carried an edge I’d never heard before—not the cool professionalism of our office interactions, but something rawer. More personal. More dangerous.

I blinked up at him, trying to process the shift in his demeanor. The Killian Vale I knew was always in control, always composed, always three steps ahead of everyone else. This version—intense, almost desperate—was a stranger.

“Excuse me?”

“This place.” His gaze swept over me again, taking in every detail. “That man. That dress.” His tone was surgical, each word precisely delivered like he was dissecting me piece by piece.

The accusation hit like a physical blow. I pushed back against the wall, trying to create some distance, but there was nowhere to go. The plaster scraped against my palms as I pressed harder, needing the slight pain to ground me.

“I didn’t realize I needed your permission to go out.”

“You don’t,” he snapped, and for the first time, his careful control cracked. The word came out harsh, raw, like it had been torn from his throat. “But you knew I’d be here.”

“I didn’t.” I shoved back with my voice, finding some steel in my spine. “Why would I care where you spend your nights?”

I’d come here to prove that I could exist in a world that didn’t revolve around Killian Vale, that I could have a life separate from the gravitational pull of his presence.

Clearly, I’d failed.

He stepped closer.

Not touching. Still not touching.

But I could feel the shift in the air, the heat of him radiating across the inch of space he hadn’t yet crossed. The scent of his cologne—something expensive and masculine with notes of cedar and bergamot—wrapped around me like a vice. It was the same scent that lingered in the conference room after our meetings, the one that had started invading my dreams.

“You don’t think I saw you?” he murmured, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “Dancing with him like that?”

The memory of Zayn’s hands on my waist, of the way I’d let him pull me close, suddenly felt different under Killian’s intense scrutiny. What had felt like innocent fun now seemed charged with meaning I hadn’t intended.

“I was having fun.”

The words came out more defensive than I’d meant them to. Why was I explaining myself to him? Why did his opinion matter? Why did the thought of him watching me dance with another man make my stomach clench?

His jaw tensed, a muscle jumping beneath the skin. In the flickering light, I could see the fine lines around his eyes, the shadow of stubble along his jawline. He was beautiful in a way that was almost painful to look at—all sharp angles and controlled power.

“You let his hands all over you.”