로그인Elena's Point Of View"The real question is, what are you doing here, little thief?" I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. My throat felt like someone had coated it in dry cement, and my brain misfired so badly that I could practically hear the gears grinding to a halt. I stared at his jawline, mesmerized by the slight stubble shadow darkening it, the way his dark gray linen collar hung unbuttoned just enough to reveal the hollow of his throat. The sheer mass of him sitting on the edge of the mattress made the whole bed tilt toward him, and I found myself sliding down the dip whether I liked it or not. Heat radiated from his body, cutting through the frigid air that had settled over the room. That warmth should have been comforting, but instead it only heightened my awareness of how close he was, how vulnerable I'd made myself by coming here. "I'm... I'm not a thief," I finally stuttered out, my voice sounding more like a squeak than that of a woman who ran a multimilli
Elena's Point Of ViewSeven days had passed since that kitchen-counter interrogation with my sister, Heather. Seven days of her voice echoing in the back of my mind like a skipping record: You like him, you like him, you like him.I'd spent the last three of those days hiding from the world. The company - the empire I usually spent twenty-four hours a day worrying over was running itself. I'd dumped everything onto my poor assistant, Clara, and the Operations Director, Lucas, leaving them with a vague email that basically said ‘keep the building from burning down until I return’.Lucas had texted me yesterday asking if I was dead. Honestly, looking at myself in the mirror, it was a fair question. My skin resembled dull paper, my hair was doing some weird, horizontal frizz thing from three days of unbothered neglect, and the sheer, driving zeal I usually had for literally anything had shrunk to a microscopic speck.I was exhausted. Not the kind of tired you fix with an extra hour of sl
Lexy's Point Of ViewI rolled my eyes so hard I actually felt a muscle strain somewhere behind my left eyelid. My whole body screamed for a hot bath, a giant glass of cheap wine, and a five-day nap, but instead, I found myself trapped in this sweltering concrete oven with a ghost from my worst teenage nightmares. "Stay away from me, Roman," I snapped, trying to shove my car keys into the ignition slot without revealing how badly my fingers trembled. The metal kept slipping against the plastic, my coordination shot from exhaustion and his unnerving presence. "Just stay far away. You and Jaxx are cut from the same cloth. No difference whatsoever. Same expensive clothes, same infuriating smirks, same trail of absolute destruction left in your wake. I don't have the time or the mental bandwidth for this today." Roman let out that low, aggravating chuckle again, his broad shoulders shifting against the driver's side door of my sedan. He looked entirely too comfortable, entirely too unbot
Lexy's Point Of ViewThe absurdity of it… Roman passing notes to anyone, Roman needing help with anything, only made it worse.The words had exploded out of me, my face instantly bursting into a furious, bright crimson blush that I knew he could see even in the dim library light. "Shorty? Shorty?! You absolute asshole!"I turned around in his grip, my hands coming up to strike his chest with as much force as my teenage arms could muster, feeling the futility of it even as I did it. The solid wall of muscle barely registered my blows, and that made me angrier still. "Let go of me! Put me down right now!"He hadn't let go. His grip on my waist had only tightened, lifting me just enough so that our eyes were level. The effortless strength in that gesture had been undeniable, and I'd hated how aware of it I became.He wore that insufferable, crooked smirk on his face - the one that made every girl in our grade lose her mind, but only made me want to kick him in the shins. The book dangled
Lexy’s Point Of ViewThe sound of my own voice saying his name felt foreign, as though it belonged to someone else entirely.Roman.That word had remained locked behind my teeth for a decade, frozen in the back of my throat like an old, sharp bone I could neither swallow nor dislodge.The parking lot around us suddenly felt entirely too quiet, the distant hum of Houston traffic fading into a dull, white noise that vibrated against my eardrums. Even the usual sounds - car doors slamming, footsteps echoing off concrete - seemed to have vanished, leaving only the thundering of my own pulse. I could hear each beat, feel it in my temples, my wrists, the hollow of my throat.I gripped my car keys so hard the metal edges bit into the meat of my palm, leaving angry crescents in my skin. The pain was sharp, grounding, but it did nothing to stop the trembling. I was shaking. I hated that I was shaking.Here I stood, a grown woman, a business owner who had just brought a room full of brutal inte
Lexy's Point Of ViewThe air conditioning in the conference room had blasted for four hours, yet it did nothing to cool the temper of the man sitting across from me. Mr. Harrison, the lead textile supplier from the overseas syndicate, rubbed his temples so vigorously I thought he might drill a hole into his skull. His left eye twitched in a rhythmic, pathetic little dance that matched the ticking of the wall clock. I'd seen that tell before, he was close to breaking. I leaned back in my leather chair, crossing my legs and tapping a tortoiseshell pen against my notepad. The familiar weight of the pen grounded me. I was running on half a cup of lukewarm espresso and pure, unadulterated stubbornness… the same combination that had built my boutique from a single storefront into a regional powerhouse. "Let's go over the logistics one more time, Lexy," Harrison groaned, his voice sounding like a rusted gate swinging in the wind. He slapped a thick, tabulated folder onto the mahogany table
Elena’s Point Of ViewThe room was quiet. Too quiet.The kind of quiet that hummed in your ears, that pressed against your skin like a living thing, heavy with the weight of everything unsaid. I lay there, still as stone, my breath shallow, my fingers curled into the sheets beneath me. The city lig
Elena’s Point Of ViewThe tears came without warning.One second, I was talking… voice steady, hands clenched in my lap, and the next, my chest was heaving, my vision blurring, my entire body shaking with sobs I couldn’t stop. It was like something inside me snapped, like the last thread holding me
He’d paid attention.I ate in silence, hyperaware of his eyes on me, the way his gaze tracked every movement, every bite, every time my lips wrapped around the fork. The air between us was thick, charged, like the moment before a storm breaks."You’re thinking too loud."I glanced up. He was watchi
Elena’s Point Of ViewThe water ran over my fingers, cold and relentless, as I scrubbed the last plate clean. The kitchenette was too quiet, the kind of quiet that pressed against my skin, that made my pulse thrum in my ears. The scent of him, lingered in the air, clinging to every surface, every b







