chapter 12

Teddy’s POV.

Two years ago.

Rain hammered the restaurant windows in relentless sheets, blurring the street outside into a gray watercolor. I sat at my usual corner table, black coffee cooling beside a stack of contracts I was only half-reading. The place was quiet except for the low murmur of other patrons and the occasional clink of cutlery.

Then I saw her.

Through the streaked glass, a woman stood alone on the sidewalk, shoulders hunched, face tilted toward the downpour as if the rain itself could wash something away. Tears mixed with the water streaming down her cheeks—she wasn’t even trying to hide them. People hurried past with umbrellas and hoods pulled low, but no one stopped. No one even glanced twice.

I watched her longer than I meant to. Something about the rawness of it—the way her body shook with silent sobs—pulled at a place I usually keplocked down tight. I exhaled slowly, set the pen down, and stood.

I grabbed the black umbrella from the stand by the door, pushed outside, and opened it over my head. Rain immediately drummed against the fabric like impatient fingers. I was dressed head to toe in black—leather jacket, face mask tugged below my chin now, dark glasses even though the sky was the color of wet concrete, cap pulled low. People usually gave me space when I looked like this. I liked it that way.

I crossed the few meters separating us and stopped just out of arm’s reach.

“Hey, miss,” I said, voice low but clear over the rain. “You alright?”

She lifted her head slowly. Our eyes met, and for a second the world narrowed to just that point of contact. Light green—almost mint—rimmed with red from crying. Small, slightly upturned nose dotted with rain. Lips full and naturally red, trembling. She was beautiful in a way that hit like a quiet punch: delicate features, soft curves beneath the soaked coat, everything exactly the kind of pretty that always caught and held my attention.

She didn’t answer. Instead fresh tears spilled over, and she dropped her gaze again, shoulders curling inward.

I crouched so we were almost eye-level, ignoring the water soaking the knees of my trousers. Without a word I held the umbrella out to her, handle first.

“Take it,” I said. “You’ll catch your death out here.”

She stared at the umbrella, then at me, searching my face like she was trying to decide if I was real. After a long beat her fingers—small, chilled—closed around the handle. The moment our hands brushed, something tightened in my chest.

She pulled the umbrella over herself but didn’t thank me. She just started crying again, softer this time, like the dam had cracked open wider instead of closing.

I straightened, gave her one last look, then turned and walked toward the black SUV idling at the curb. Eric was already behind the wheel, engine purring.

I slid into the back seat. The leather was cool against my damp jacket.

“Eric.”

“Yes, sir.”

“That woman under the umbrella now—the one I just spoke to. Keep an eye on her. Make sure she doesn’t do anything… stupid. And find out who she is. Everything you can get.”

He met my eyes in the rearview mirror. “And you, sir?”

I leaned back, already pulling out my phone. “I’ll call an Uber.

“alright sir.”

That evening, after a hot shower had steamed the chill out of my bones, I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling. The room was dark except for the faint city glow slipping through the blinds. I should’ve been thinking about tomorrow’s meeting, the merger clauses I still hadn’t finalized.

Instead her face kept surfacing—those mint-green eyes, the way her lips trembled, the defeated curve of her shoulders in the rain.

She was a complete stranger.

That had never stopped me before.

Whatever I want, I get.

And tonight, lying here with her image burned behind my eyelids, I already knew I wanted her.

A week later I was in my home office, the late-afternoon sun slanting through the blinds in sharp golden bars across the desk. I’d been staring at the same spreadsheet for twenty minutes without seeing a single number when Eric knocked once and stepped inside.

“Sir, may I come in?”

“Of course, Eric. Tell me you have something.”

He crossed the room without a word and placed a slim manila envelope on the desk in front of me. “Everything I could pull together.”

I nodded. “That’ll be all.”

He left as quietly as he’d arrived. The door clicked shut, and I tore the envelope open before the echo had even faded.

The first thing that slid out was a photograph. Payton Anderson—smiling, unguarded, the kind of smile that belonged on magazine covers or summer postcards. She wore a light flowery dress that skimmed her curves and a wide-brimmed summer hat tilted at a playful angle. Her light-green eyes sparkled even in the still image; she looked like she’d never known a single bad day. At the bottom, in neat typed font: Payton Anderson.

I flipped to the next photo and felt something twist in my gut.

Same woman, but now she was wrapped in the arms of a tall, handsome man—both of them laughing, heads thrown back, completely lost in each other. They looked like the kind of couple people envied on I*******m. Happy. Whole.

I set the pictures aside and pulled out the typed pages.

Payton Brown / Anderson, 34 years old. Graduated Oxford. Married to Richard Anderson, sole heir and current owner of the family business, A & Sons. Parents deceased. The couple met relatively recently, married quickly, and appeared deeply in love—inseparable. They traveled together constantly. Approximately three years into the marriage, they welcomed a daughter, Mia. Mia was three months old when she died in a tragic house fire caused by faulty wiring. Since the incident, sources report the couple has not been the same.

I leaned back in the chair, exhaling through my nose.

Hmmm. A tragic love story wrapped in a pretty package.

I should walk away. I hated drama—real drama, the kind that left scars and expectations. But the truth settled in my chest like it always did when I’d already made up my mind.

I liked what I liked.

And I liked her. I don't care if she is married.

That night I couldn’t stop staring at the photo of her smiling in the flowery dress. The longer I looked, the tighter the heat coiled low in my gut. My body reacted before my brain caught up—hard, insistent, impossible to ignore. I shoved the picture back into the envelope, stood, and left the house without changing.

The club was exactly how I needed it: dark, pulsing, familiar. I claimed my usual VIP booth in the back—quiet enough to think, close enough to feel the bass in my bones. I ordered whiskey, neat, and let the first and second glass burn down my throat while the third waited.

“Look who finally decided to show his face.”

Amanda’s voice cut through the low thrum of the music like velvet. She slid into the booth without waiting for an invitation, all long legs and knowing eyes. Owner of the place, my first real teacher in every way that mattered—women, pleasure, power. Even now, years later, I still felt that old pull whenever she was near. She was the one person who never judged, never hesitated, always told me to take what I wanted.

“Hello, baby girl,” I said, patting my thigh.

She settled onto my lap immediately, straddling me the way she always had—like she owned the space between us. Her fingers slid into my hair, stroking slowly and deliberately.

“Teddy,” she murmured, lips brushing my ear. “I’ve missed you.”

“Missed you too.” I took a slow sip of whiskey, letting the burn ground me.

“So… what dragged you out of that fortress of yours tonight?”

I chuckled, low. “You really do know me too well, don’t you?”

“Always have, love. And I know that look. Big appetite tonight.”

I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out the photo—the smiling one. I held it up between us.

Amanda took it, studied it for a long moment. Her lips curved.

“Wow. She’s stunning. Exactly your type—pretty face, soft body, that innocent glow.” She handed it back. “But there’s a ‘but,’ isn’t there?”

“She’s married.”

Amanda exhaled a quiet laugh and reached for the silver cigarette case on the table. She lit one with practiced grace, the flame briefly illuminating the sharp lines of her face.

“Has that ever stopped you, Teddy?”

I smiled—slow, dangerous.

“Can we go somewhere private?”

“The usual?”

“Of course.”

She stood, took my hand, and led me through the shadowed hallway toward the private rooms at the back. The music faded behind us, replaced by the steady beat of my own pulse.

Whatever hesitation I’d felt earlier was gone.

Payton Anderson was already mine—she just didn’t know it yet.