Chapter two-The first pull

 The city outside was quiet, but inside me, nothing rested.

Selene Hawthorne had invaded my thoughts the moment I left her presence the night before. Her laugh—soft but deliberate. The tilt of her head when she listened, as though she were weighing every word spoken in the room. The effortless way she moved through spaces filled with powerful men, never shrinking, never forcing herself to be seen.

She haunted me.

I hadn’t slept. Not fully. Every time I closed my eyes, fragments of her returned—her voice, her stillness, the way her gaze lingered just long enough to feel intentional. Every heartbeat reminded me of a truth I didn’t want to face.

Desire wasn’t a weakness.

Desire was treason.

I buried myself in work, drowning in contracts and calls, forcing my attention onto ink and numbers instead of memory. Edward’s empire sprawled across my desk in neatly organized files—investments, acquisitions, offshore interests that glittered with promise and risk. On paper, everything was immaculate. In reality, I sensed fractures beneath the surface.

Deals that leaned too heavily on trust. Alliances that depended on silence. People who watched more closely than they admitted.

A wrong glance. A lingering thought. A single moment of weakness.

That was all it would take for the world I’d built to collapse.

And then she appeared.

Selene stood in Edward’s office as if she belonged there—not as a possession, not as an accessory, but as a presence. Poised. Deliberate. Her entrance shifted the atmosphere in a way that had nothing to do with power and everything to do with awareness.

My chest tightened.

Every instinct I had screamed at me to retreat. To put distance between myself and the danger she represented. But my body betrayed me, holding me in place, rooted by something far more insidious than curiosity.

The slightest brush of her hand as she passed. The calm acknowledgment in her gaze.

The air between us felt charged, tight with something unspoken.

Every movement became a test.

And I was failing spectacularly.

Marcus hovered nearby, adjusting Edward’s papers with meticulous care, his movements precise and practiced. He was the kind of man who survived by seeing without being seen, by remembering everything and revealing nothing. I wondered—briefly—what he might notice if he looked too closely.

Across the room, Lila Monroe leaned against the edge of the table, arms loosely crossed. Her eyes flicked toward me, a small, knowing smile touching her lips before she turned away again. Lila always sensed shifts in atmosphere before they fully formed. She felt tension like others felt weather.

Evelyn Drake stood near the windows, hands clasped neatly in front of her, silent and observant. She noticed everything without comment, storing details away like weapons she might never need—but would never forget.

Each quiet presence reminded me of the same truth.

I was being watched.

In rooms like this, empires didn’t fall from explosions or betrayals shouted aloud. They unraveled through subtleties—hesitations, glances held too long, desire revealed where none should exist.

Edward Hawthorne stood at the center of it all, smiling easily, as though the weight of his influence was nothing more than a well-tailored suit. Calm. Confident. Untouched by doubt.

The perfect husband.

The perfect client.

The perfect trap.

He spoke of expansion and leverage, of futures already secured. Half my empire rested comfortably within his reach, bound by contracts and expectation. Edward didn’t threaten. He didn’t need to. His presence alone was leverage.

I listened. I nodded. I played my role flawlessly.

But my mind circled only one thing.

Selene.

She stood just apart from the discussion, close enough to belong, distant enough to remain untouched by the business itself. She wasn’t trying to draw attention. That was what made it impossible not to look. Her stillness was intentional. Her composure effortless.

Dangerous.

Untouchable.

Forbidden.

I told myself I was imagining it. That this was nothing more than proximity, fatigue, a lapse in discipline. Edward’s wife was not a woman a man like me should allow into his thoughts.

Wanting her wasn’t foolish.

It was treason.

I excused myself under the pretense of taking a call, murmuring a polite apology as I stepped away from the group. No one questioned it. Men like me were always needed elsewhere, always managing something unseen.

I didn’t go far.

Instead, I moved closer to her, my steps casual, indirect—perfectly reasonable. The kind of movement no one would question.

Our shoulders brushed.

It was accidental. It had to be.

The contact lasted barely a second, yet the heat of it lingered, sharp and unsettling, like a spark striking too close to flame. My body stilled, every instinct screaming at me to move away.

She didn’t.

She turned her head just enough for our eyes to meet. No apology. No surprise. Just awareness. Calm, deliberate, devastating awareness.

A quiet acknowledgment.

A fleeting glance.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

The room seemed to narrow, sound dulling around the edges as if I’d stepped into a space that belonged only to us. I became acutely aware of my breathing, of my pulse, of how close she was.

Too close.

I stepped away first—not because I wanted to, but because I had to.

I murmured something polite, meaningless, and continued toward the corridor without looking back. Control had always been my greatest strength. Losing it, even for a moment, was not an option.

By the time I left the office, the city air felt sharp against my skin. My hands clenched around a cup of coffee I barely drank, the bitterness grounding me as I stared out at the lights below.

I replayed the moment over and over—the brush of her shoulder, the look in her eyes, the fact that she hadn’t moved away.

This wasn’t curiosity.

It was something else.

Something far more dangerous.

I knew the truth then.

Desire had already won the first battle.

Treason wasn’t coming.

It was here.

And the longer I resisted it, the more it consumed me.