A Dangerous Distraction

Chapter Three

Julian’s POV

She sat across from me, all spine and suspicion, as if she hadn’t spent the last week undressing me with her eyes every time we passed in the hallway.

I saw the tremor in her fingers as she gripped the chair arms. Subtle. Controlled. But there.

Aria Monroe was smarter than she let on. Sharp enough to dig too deep. Curious enough to get herself killed.

The video… It had been bait. I knew that the second my tech analyst pinged me with a security breach from one of the oldest encrypted vaults in our archive. Someone had uploaded that file to our internal system without authorization and had deliberately left it exposed.

And Aria had found it.

No one was supposed to find it.

Her voice echoed in my mind from moments ago:

“I don’t know what I saw.”

That’s what scared me the most. Because I knew what she saw. And if she had seen five seconds more of that footage…

I leaned against the cool windowpane, letting my eyes drift toward the skyline. The city moved below us like an organism chaotic, beautiful, ruthless. Just like me.

I glanced back at her. Her jaw was set, but her lips had parted slightly in that way they always did when she was holding something back. It was a nervous tell. I’d noticed it the first week she started when I’d told her I didn’t tolerate mediocrity.

She had smiled at me, all innocence and challenge.

She hadn’t looked away.

And ever since, I couldn’t stop watching her.

She was temptation wrapped in subtle brilliance. I’d hired her because her file was clean and her recommendations were airtight. But nothing in that resume had warned me she’d unravel me like this.

And now, she was entangled in something dangerous.

Too dangerous.

I turned from the window.

“You shouldn’t have looked into that file,” I said, my voice low. Calm.

“I told you, it was open. I didn’t even know what I was”

“You knew enough to be scared.”

She flinched, but didn’t look away.

Damn it. She had courage. The wrong kind of courage.

I moved around my desk and sat on the edge, folding my arms. Keeping a controlled distance between us. It was getting harder to do that lately.

“I’m giving you a choice, Aria,” I said slowly. “You can keep working here. I’ll make sure nothing touches you. But you don’t look back. You don’t ask questions. You pretend that file never existed.”

She studied me. “And if I don’t?”

My jaw tightened. “Then I let go of the leash.”

She stiffened. The air between us charged. Her pulse was visible at her throat, fluttering like a hummingbird’s wing. I watched her breath hitch watched the war behind her eyes.

“I’m not sure if that’s a threat or a promise,” she muttered.

I smiled faintly. “Both.”

Her eyes searched mine then, not like an employee searching for her boss, but like a woman trying to understand the man who haunted her nights.

“You’re not what you pretend to be,” she whispered.

“No,” I said softly. “I never was.”

Silence fell, heavy and strained. I looked down at her hands clenched in her lap and resisted the urge to touch them. To offer her something I couldn’t afford to give: comfort.

Because comfort becomes connection.

And connection becomes weakness.

I’d killed for less.

Literally.

My phone buzzed against the desk. I glanced at it.

A message from Trent: “She’s not the only one snooping. You’ve been compromised.”

I set the phone down slowly.

Things were spiraling faster than I anticipated.

Aria stood abruptly. “I should go.”

I didn’t move. I couldn’t. My instincts screamed to stop her, to shield her from what was coming. But I had no right.

She reached the door, her hand pausing on the handle.

Then, without turning back, she said quietly, “You think I don’t see the way you look at me. Like I’m the last thing you want to want.”

I felt the words in my chest sharp and perfectly placed.

She opened the door and disappeared.

And I sat there, unmoving.

God help me, she was right.

I wanted her. I feared wanting her.

But more than anything…

I couldn’t let her go.

Not now.

Because I wasn’t sure if the people after me… were now coming for her too.

Later That Night

I poured a finger of scotch and stepped out onto my balcony. The city below flickered with life, but my mind was on the video. The frame Aria had seen was only the first in a series. A setup. A trap. One meant to take me down.

But the real danger wasn’t what was in the footage.

It was who sent it and what they wanted.

A year ago, I made a deal that saved this company… and damned my soul. I buried bodies, both figurative and literal. And the man who helped me do it Dominic Voss had resurfaced like a viper out of the dark.

If he found out about Aria, he’d use her.

Like he used everyone.

I couldn’t let that happen.

Even if it meant bringing her closer.

Even if it meant dragging her into the dark with me.

Because keeping her in the light?

Was no longer an option.