CHAPTER 5

ALEX'S POV

I knew who she was before she ever walked into the restaurant.

It happened the night her mother showed me her photograph.

I had barely glanced at it before something caught my attention.

The mark.

Small. Distinctive. Just above her shoulder blade.

I knew that mark.

I'd seen it before.

Hundreds of times.

I picked up my phone and opened the account I'd been following for months—the account belonging to the woman who had become an obsession I had never intended to have.

I pulled up one of her old posts.

There it was.

The same mark.

I stared at both images.

Then I compared them again.

And again.

I spent hours searching through everything I had saved from her account.

The mark was identical.

So were the little things I'd never consciously noticed before.

The way she moved.

The way she tilted her head.

The way she reacted when she was amused.

The pieces started fitting together.

Ava was the woman behind the account.

My anonymous girl.

The woman I'd spent months watching from a distance.

And suddenly, she wasn't a mystery anymore.

She had a name.

A family.

A life.

And, unfortunately, a place in mine.

Her mother was going to marry me.

I should have walked away.

Instead, I opened Ava's account that night.

She was online.

She had no idea I knew.

I watched her for a long time.

Then I started sending gifts.

One after another.

Larger than usual.

More frequent.

I wanted her attention.

I wanted her wondering who was behind them.

I wanted to know whether she could feel me getting closer.

By the time she finally ended the live, I'd spent far more than I intended.

I didn't care.

Money had never been the thing I lacked.

What I lacked was something I couldn't buy.

Her.

Not the woman behind the screen.

Not the anonymous fantasy I'd spent months watching.

Ava.

The real woman.

The one who had looked at me across that dinner table as though she couldn't decide whether she hated me.

The one who tried to hide her nerves whenever I looked at her too long.

The one who had no idea that I'd already memorized the smallest details about her.

When she walked into the restaurant, I knew immediately.

There was no longer any doubt.

And when I saw the mark on her back, I almost forgot to breathe.

She had spent months hiding herself from everyone.

But somehow, she had walked straight into my life.

I watched her that evening.

I watched the way she avoided me.

The way she became uncomfortable whenever our eyes met.

The way she tried to pretend she wasn't curious.

She was trying to stay away from me.

I understood why.

She should have.

Because I had already made a decision.

I wanted her.

Not for a night.

Not as some secret obsession that would disappear once the excitement faded.

I wanted her in my life.

And I knew exactly how complicated that was.

She was my future wife's daughter.

That should have been enough to make me let go.

It wasn't.

For the first time in my life, I wanted something I couldn't simply purchase, negotiate, or command into existence.

And that made me dangerous.

I wasn't going to force Ava.

I wasn't going to drag her into something she didn't want.

But I was willing to go further than I should to make her choose me.

I would tear apart every excuse she gave me.

I would make her question every boundary she'd built.

I would uncover every secret standing between us.

And if there was something keeping her from me, I would find it.

If there was someone standing between us, I would deal with them.

If there was a secret powerful enough to destroy this family, I would uncover it.

Because I'd spent months searching for the woman behind the screen.

I'd finally found her.

And I wasn't prepared to lose her.

Not now.

Not after knowing she was real.

Not after seeing her look at me.

Not after hearing her say my name.

Ava thought I was the man who could destroy her secret.

She hadn't realized the truth yet.

I wasn't interested in destroying her.

I wanted her to belong in my world.

And I was willing to risk everything I had built to make that happen.