Chapter Three - Collision

The orchestra launched into a bright, glittering foxtrot, but the sound felt miles away.

Adrian crossed the remaining distance in four long strides. Up close he looked taller than memory allowed, broader in the shoulders, the boyish softness she once loved replaced by sharp angles and expensive tailoring. His blue eyes were bloodshot at the edges, as if he had not slept properly in weeks.

“Elara,” he breathed. The single word cracked open two years of silence.

Serena’s grip on her wrist tightened. “Adrian, this really isn’t.”

“It’s okay,” Elara heard herself say. Her voice sounded foreign, thin. “I can handle it.”

Serena hesitated, then released her with a worried glance before melting back into the crowd. The circle around them widened instinctively. People scented drama the way sharks scent blood.

Adrian swallowed hard. “You look… God, you look incredible.”

“Don’t.” The word left her lips sharper than intended. “Don’t do small talk. Not after two years of nothing.”

His jaw flexed. “I know. I know I don’t have the right. I just.” He dragged a hand through his blond hair, disheveling the perfect styling. “I saw you with him. Cassian. And I.” He laughed, a broken sound. “I thought I was prepared to see you again. I wasn’t.”

Above them Cassian had not moved from the balustrade. One hand rested casually in his pocket, the other loosely curled around a tumbler of something dark. His gaze was a physical weight on her skin, heavy, possessive, unblinking.

Adrian noticed. His expression shuttered. “Of course he found you first. He always finds everything first.”

“What does that mean?” Elara asked, voice low.

Adrian’s eyes flicked up to his half-brother, then back to her. Pain and something that looked disturbingly like fear flashed across his face. “It means you should stay away from him, Elara. Far away.”

Before she could answer, a warm hand settled at the small of her back. Cassian. He had descended the staircase without a sound, the heat of his palm searing through the thin silk of her dress.

“Little brother,” he greeted, voice deceptively mild. “Didn’t expect to see you here tonight.”

Adrian stiffened. “I could say the same about you sniffing around my.”

He stopped himself, but the unspoken word hung in the air like smoke.

Cassian’s smile was slow, lethal. “Careful, Adrian. Some sentences are better left unfinished.”

The tension crackled. Around them conversation had all but ceased. Phones angled discreetly. This was New York society’s favorite kind of entertainment: old money tearing itself apart in public.

Elara stepped sideways, out from under Cassian’s hand. She needed air that did not taste like cedar and testosterone. “I’m not a prize for either of you to fight over,” she said, loud enough for nearby ears to catch. “I’m going to the ladies’ room. When I come back, I expect both of you to remember you’re adults.”

She walked away before either could reply, heels clicking across marble like gunshots.

The ladies’ lounge was mercifully empty, all cool marble and dim gold light. She braced her palms on the counter, staring at her reflection. The woman in the mirror looked like a stranger: flushed cheeks, wild green eyes, lips swollen from being pressed together too hard.

Two years ago Adrian Vale had been everything. They had met during her senior year of college when he was doing guest lectures on sustainable investment. He had been charming, self-deprecating, impossibly gentle. He had kissed her under autumn maple trees and promised her the world. Then one morning she woke up to an empty side of the bed and a text that simply read: I’m sorry. I can’t.

No explanation. No goodbye.

And now here he was, warning her about Cassian like he still had the right.

The door opened. Serena slipped inside, worry written across her pretty features. “Are you okay? That was intense.”

“I don’t understand what just happened,” Elara admitted.

Serena bit her lip. “Adrian and Cassian… they’ve never been close. Different mothers, twenty-year age gap between them, and then everything with the company after their father died.” She hesitated. “There’s bad blood. Really bad blood. Adrian thinks Cassian blames him for things that weren’t his fault.”

Elara closed her eyes. “And now they’re both looking at me like I’m the rope in their tug-of-war.”

Serena touched her arm gently. “Cassian doesn’t tug, Elara. He cuts the rope and takes what he wants.”

They stayed in the lounge longer than necessary, reapplying lipstick they did not need, laughing too loudly at nothing. When they finally stepped back into the ballroom, both men were gone. Relief and disappointment tangled in her chest.

Serena tugged her toward the bar. “Come on. One drink. Then we’ll dance until our feet fall off and forget brooding billionaires exist.”

They were on their second round of espresso martinis when a shadow fell across their table.

Cassian.

He had removed his tuxedo jacket. The white shirt was rolled to his elbows, exposing powerful forearms. He held two top buttons were undone, revealing a glimpse of dark skin and the hollow at the base of his throat. He looked less like a billionaire and more like danger in human form.

“Dance with me again,” he said. Not a question.

Serena raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

Elara’s pulse stuttered. “I was actually about to.”

He extended his hand, palm up. Waiting.

She placed her fingers in his. The contact was electric. He led her back to the floor as the orchestra began a slow, sultry tango that felt written for them alone.

This time there was no pretense of distance. He pulled her flush against him, one arm banding around her waist, the other capturing her hand against his chest. She could feel the hard planes of his body, the controlled strength in every movement.

“You ran,” he murmured, lips grazing the shell of her ear.

“I needed air.”

“You needed space from me.” His breath was warm against her temple. “I don’t give space, Elara. I give truth.”

She shivered. “And what is your truth, Cassian Vale?”

“That I have thought about this moment for longer than you can imagine.” His thumb traced the exposed line of her spine, slow, deliberate. “That I have imagined the way your skin would feel under my hands, the way your breath would catch when I touched you exactly where you needed.”

Heat flooded her cheeks, her chest, lower. “You don’t even know me.”

“I know the way you taste fear and desire in the same breath.” His lips brushed the sensitive spot just below her ear. “I know the way your body leans into mine even while your mind screams to run.”

Her knees weakened. She hated that he was right.

The music swelled. He spun her out, then snapped her back in so quickly her back arched against his arm, her head falling back. For one dizzying second she was completely open to him, throat exposed, pulse racing beneath his gaze.

When he righted her, his eyes had gone almost black. “Tell me to stop,” he said, voice rough. “Say the word and I walk away right now.”

She should have. Every rational part of her screamed to say it.

Instead she whispered, “Don’t you dare.”

Something feral flashed across his face. The hand at her waist slid lower, fingers splaying over the curve of her hip, pressing her tighter against evidence of exactly how much he wanted her. She gasped softly.

“Good girl,” he breathed.

The song ended. He did not let go.

Around them people were clapping, moving, living. But they stood frozen in the middle of the floor, breathing each other’s air, the space between them charged with everything unsaid.

Eventually he released her, but only enough to lace their fingers together. “Walk with me.”

It was not a request.

He led her through a side door she had not noticed, down a dimly lit corridor that smelled of old money and secrets. At the end was a small balcony overlooking the city, rain still falling in silver sheets.

He closed the door behind them. The click of the lock sounded impossibly loud.

For a long moment they simply stared at each other, rain drumming on the awning above them.

Then he moved.

One step, two, until her back met the wall and his body caged her in. Not touching, not yet. Just close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from him.

“Tell me you don’t feel this,” he said, voice low, dangerous.

“I feel it,” she admitted. The words came out shaky. “That doesn’t mean I trust it.”

His hand lifted, slow enough that she could have stopped him. She did not. His knuckles brushed her cheek, then slid down the line of her throat, stopping just above the neckline of her dress. Her breath caught.

“I don’t want your trust yet,” he said. “I want your surrender.”

He leaned in until his lips hovered a whisper from hers. She could taste the scotch on his breath, feel the tremor he was holding back by sheer will.

“One word,” he repeated. “And I stop.”

The rain roared in her ears. Her heart thundered against her ribs.

She rose on tiptoe and closed the distance herself.

The kiss was not gentle. It was years of waiting, of wanting, of knowing exactly who she was and still choosing to burn. His mouth claimed hers with devastating precision, tongue sliding against hers in a rhythm that promised everything and nothing at once. One hand cupped her jaw, the other slid into her hair, angling her exactly how he wanted.

She moaned into his mouth. The sound seemed to break something in him. He pressed her harder against the wall, thigh sliding between hers, the expensive fabric of her dress riding up as he lifted her slightly off the ground. She clutched his shoulders, nails digging through his shirt, needing an anchor in the storm he was unleashing inside her.

When they finally broke apart, both were breathing like they had run miles.

He rested his forehead against hers. “Come home with me.”

The words were raw, stripped of every layer of control he usually wore.

She wanted to say yes. God, she wanted to say yes.

But the black card burned in her clutch, and Adrian’s warning echoed in her ears, and the brass key felt heavier than ever.

“I can’t,” she whispered. “Not tonight.”

His eyes searched hers, dark and endless. Then he nodded once, the movement tight.

He stepped back, giving her space she both craved and hated.

“I’ll wait,” he said. “But not forever.”

He opened the door for her. The roar of the gala rushed back in, loud and bright and wrong after the hush of the balcony.

She walked past him on unsteady legs, every inch of her skin alive with the memory of his hands, his mouth, his promise.

Behind her, Cassian Vale watched her go, jaw clenched so tight it ached.

He had waited years.

He could wait one more night.

But only one.