Chapter 4

**Lucian’s POV**

The city never slept. But it bent for men like me.

Blackwood Tower stuck out in the sky like a knife, a reminder of everything I'd fought to build. My office was at the top, with the city below looking like my own personal playground. I should have been working on the contracts on my desk. They were big deals that would really boost the company. But I was stuck on something that bugged me, and I couldn't figure out what it was.

“Are you going to stare at those papers until they catch fire?”

I didn’t bother lifting my head. “Are you going to sit there until I throw you out?”

Finley slouched deeper into the chair opposite me, grinning like the devil. “You’ve been gone for weeks, and that’s the first thing you say to me? No ‘hello’? No ‘I missed you, Fin’? Cold, even for you.”

“I didn’t miss you,” I said flatly.

“Liar.” He smirked, propping his feet up on the edge of my desk.

I shot him a glare sharp enough to strip paint. “Get your feet off my desk before I break them.”

He dropped them with exaggerated obedience. “There it is. The Lucian I know and love, always ready to bite.”

“Love?” I muttered. “You’ve mistaken it for tolerance.”

“Please.” He leaned back, lacing his fingers behind his head. “If you didn’t like me, I’d have been dead a long time ago. Probably buried under this tower, cemented with the foundations.”

“Still tempting,” I said dryly.

He laughed, unbothered. “You’re rusty. Europe softened you. Too many suits, too much wine. You come back and suddenly you’re moodier than usual; I didn’t think that was possible.”

I didn’t answer. I rarely wasted words.

“You know what I think?” he went on, undeterred. “I think you’re lonely.”

I lifted a brow. “Do you enjoy hearing yourself talk, or is this your way of begging me for attention?”

“It’s called friendship,” he said, mock-offended. “Something you wouldn’t recognise if it bit you in the ass.”

“I recognise it just fine,” I said. “That’s why I don’t bother with it.”

Finley grinned wider, as if he lived for my barbs. “And yet, here I am. Still breathing. Still sitting across from you. Makes me wonder…do you secretly like me, Backwood?”

“Keep testing me and you’ll find out how secret it really is.”

He chuckled, tilting his head. “Touché.”

Silence hovered, but not for long.

“You know, Leona’s been…”

“Stop.”

“What? I’m just saying, your fiancée…”

“She’s not my fiancée.”

“She thinks she is,” he said, amused. “Hell, she’s convincing half the city she already is. Parading your name around like she’s earned it.”

I gave him a look sharp enough to cut glass.

He held up his hands in surrender. “Don’t shoot the messenger. But you can’t ignore her forever. She’s in love with you.”

“Love,” I muttered, “is a convenient excuse for obsession. She doesn’t love me. She loves what the name gives her.”

“Careful,” Finley teased. “One day, someone might actually love you for you, and you won’t know what to do.”

“Unlikely.”

Before he could toss back another jab, the door burst open.

Leona.

She swept in without knocking, draped in silk and dripping diamonds. The air shifted with her perfume, thick, suffocating, expensive. She moved like she owned the place.

“Lucian,” she said softly, almost breathless, her voice coated in honey.

I didn’t rise. Didn’t smile. “Leona.”

Her eyes flicked to Finley, then back to me. “Could we… talk? Alone?”

Finley rose, grinning like the bastard he was. “Don’t mind me. I was just leaving.” He shot me a mocking salute before walking out, shutting the door with a final click.

Silence stretched, heavy and suffocating.

She took a step closer, her posture perfect, but her eyes betrayed her. Shiny, desperate, pleading.

“You haven’t answered my calls,” she whispered. “You’ve been gone for weeks, Lucian. I thought…” Her voice cracked before she caught it. “I thought maybe you’d forgotten about me.”

I leaned back in my chair, fingers steepled. “I didn’t forget. I just didn’t care to respond.”

Her lips parted, wounded. “How can you say that? I love you.”

The words rang out in the room, echoing against the glass and steel.

“You don’t know what love is,” I said flatly. “You love the name. The wealth. The throne you think comes with me.”

“That’s not true.” She moved closer, her hands trembling as she reached for the edge of my desk. “I’ve loved you since I was a girl. Since before you were the CEO, before the world feared you. I don’t want your empire, Lucian. I want you.”

Her voice broke. Tears clung to her lashes, but she kept her chin high.

“I don’t need your pity, your charity. Just… let me stand beside you. Let me prove I can be enough.”

The desperation in her tone filled the room like smoke. I felt it clawing at my skin, pressing against the walls I’d built.

Her voice trembled, eyes bright with tears she refused to let fall.

“Don’t push me away. Don’t… Don't make me the enemy.”

“You’re wasting your breath,” I said coldly.

Her composure shattered for a heartbeat before she caught it. She leaned closer, her voice dropping to a whisper laced with venom:

“If you push me away, Lucian, you’ll lose everything.”

And then she was gone. Heels echoing, perfume clinging, desperation trailing like smoke.

The silence she left wasn’t peaceful. It was suffocating.

The door cracked open again.

Finley slipped back in, smirking. “She’s going to kill you one day. Maybe with a kiss. Maybe with poison. But definitely with drama.”

“Shut up.”

“She’s crazy about you.”

“She’s crazy, period.”

Finley laughed, settling back into the chair. “You’re cold, man. Ice. She’s practically begging for a scrap, and you…stone.”

“I don’t feed parasites.”

“Ouch. Harsh.” He tilted his head, studying me. “One day, though, someone’s going to crack you open. And when it happens, I’ll be front-row with popcorn.”

I ignored him, turning back to the skyline pressing against the glass.

The phone on my desk buzzed. My secretary’s voice came through, nervous. “Sir… your mother is on the line.”

I pressed the button, the line opening with a click.

“Lucian,” my mother’s voice slid through, cold and sharp as a blade. “I think it’s time we made the announcement. The engagement between you and Leona will be public before the week is out.”

Her tone left no room for argument.

The line went dead.

I sat in silence, her words weighing like chains.

Leona’s desperation. My mother’s command.

Two storms collided and I stood in their centre.