Chapter 2: WEAPONIZED CAFFEINE

CHAPTER 2

Six years earlier. Heathrow Private Terminal.

Raiyan had been on his phone the whole walk, three decisions ahead and half already in the next meeting. People stepped out of his way before they knew they were doing it, and it had been that way for so long that he no longer noticed. Evan trailed a careful step behind him, reminding him that they had twenty minutes before they needed to leave for the Axis Tech board meeting, but Raiyan wasn't listening, because he never listened when he was working.

Somewhere ahead, around the bend of the corridor, a pair of heels was crossing the marble fast. The clicks were quick and a little uneven, the sound of someone who was late and refused to look it, and he registered them the way he registered everything in an airport, without looking up.

"I'm not late," a voice was saying, low and amused, "just strategically behind schedule."

The clicks got louder, and his thumb stopped on the screen without his being able to say why. For half a second he almost looked up, but Evan said, "Raiyan, the twenty minutes," and he went back to his phone and turned the corner.

She was already there, moving fast, with a suitcase in one hand and a two-cup carrier in the other, a tote sliding off her shoulder and her phone pinned between her ear and her shoulder. She glanced up at the last possible second, saw him, and tried to stop, but her heel struck the marble with one sharp click and didn't catch.

The polished floor gave her nothing to hold on to. Her heel slid out from under her and her ankle rolled, and she pitched forward with her hands full and no way to save herself.

Raiyan's phone was gone from his hand before he knew he'd let it go. His arm went around her waist and took her weight, his hand closing around the narrowest part of her through the trench, and he planted his back foot to keep them both upright. Somewhere behind him the phone hit the marble, and he didn't look.

The carrier tipped between them, and one cup came up and across his shirt. The cold went through the cotton at the same moment her body came against his, warm and soft and breathing hard. She had let go of the suitcase to grab him, and it rolled a few feet and toppled over with a rattle, and now one fist was twisted into his wet shirt, the other hand was somehow still holding the carrier, and her face was against his chest. Her hair came completely loose from its knot and fell long and dark down her back and across his arm, and a small gold clip caught on his cuff as it fell. The scent of her reached him all at once, dark jasmine and warm vanilla under the clean smell of rain.

She drew in a breath against his shirt, and he felt it before he heard it. She started to lift her face and stopped halfway, and her fingers tightened once in his shirt before they loosened.

Her heel found the floor again with one clean click, and she was standing, and he should have let go. His grip tightened instead, and for three or four seconds neither of them had a single clever thing to say.

The terminal kept moving around them, with suitcases rolling past and a boarding call droning overhead. Behind him, Evan's shoes squeaked to a stop, and he looked at Raiyan, closed his eyes for exactly one second, and offered her a silent prayer.

Her phone had landed near Raiyan's shoe, and a small voice came out of it, saying, "Hello? Are you still there?"

"I'll call you back," she said, but her eyes stayed on him.

That was when he actually looked at her, at the small, delicate face flushed from running, the large hazel-green eyes framed by thick lashes, and the midnight-blue trench belted around a narrow waist, with sunglasses shoved carelessly on top of her head. His gaze dropped briefly before returning to her face, and the fact that he'd done it at all irritated him. Then she looked down at his arm around her, and color climbed straight up her neck.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, and it came out lower and quieter than anything he'd said all morning, though he had no idea where it had come from.

"No. I—" She let go of his shirt one finger at a time, as if he might not notice. "Oh no," she said, a moment too late, looking at the stain spreading across his chest. "This is bad."

She stepped back, tugged at her trench, and found her chin again, and impressively, the second coffee was still standing in the carrier. "If you can't walk in a straight line," she said, a little breathless, "maybe stay home."

"Fascinating," he said. "I'll take that into account." His gaze drifted to her eyes and stayed there a second too long. "You should stay home too. Until you figure out whether those eyes are for navigation or just decoration."

"No," she said evenly. "My eyes are on vacation."

He exhaled once, recalibrating, and let his gaze follow hers down to the stain. "Right—"

"And look," she said, cutting him off and gesturing at his ruined shirt, "your shirt just filed a claim on my morning coffee."

"Oh," Raiyan said, and for once nothing clever followed it. He opened his mouth, found nothing there, and closed it again.

She looked down at the damage she'd caused, and the humor in her voice dimmed a notch. "Okay. This part's on me." She pulled a handkerchief from her bag and stepped in close, and that same scent reached him again before he could stop himself from noticing.

Her hand landed lightly against his chest, right over his heartbeat. She probably hadn't felt it, but he had. Nobody touched him without permission, and she had now done it twice, and he still hadn't stepped back, and before he could think about it his fingers closed around her wrist and neither of them moved.

"You've done enough damage," he said. His voice had dropped lower than he meant it to, and his eyes fell to her mouth for exactly as long as it took to remember himself.

Her pulse jumped under his thumb, and he felt it before she could hide it, but she didn't pull away. She only tilted her head with her chin lifted, as if nothing had happened. "Are you always this dramatic," she asked, "or did my coffee offend you personally?"

Her eyes dropped to his hand, and he realized he was still holding her. He let go slowly, and she lifted one eyebrow, barely at all.

"I'm trying to decide," he said, "whether this was an accident, or a cry for attention."

She blinked and then smiled, enigmatic. "You think I spilled coffee on you for attention?"

"You walked into me." Raiyan lifted one eyebrow, as though he had just presented the final piece of evidence.

"Yes." She paused for half a second before stepping closer. "With commitment."

He stared at her, caught somewhere between annoyance and amusement, and he disliked how much he was enjoying this. "You owe me a shirt," he said, glancing down at the stain again, unimpressed.

"You owe me emotional damage," she said, coming back just as fast.

"Do I?" He raised a brow, more entertained than anything.

"Yes," she said, with a perfectly straight face.

She was close enough that he could see her pulse moving at her throat, and he watched it for a second longer than a man with twenty minutes had any right to. Behind him, Evan was saying something about the board, and Raiyan didn't hear a word of it.

"Send me the invoice," he said, low and unhurried. "In person." Neither of them stepped back.

Before she could say another word, Raiyan took the second cup straight out of the carrier in her hand. Her brows went up, but he had already taken a sip, though he never drank from anyone else's cup and didn't stop to ask himself why he was doing it now. Then he tipped it just enough for coffee to splash across the sleeve of her trench.

"Absolutely not," she said, staring at the spot. "Did you seriously just sip-spill me?"

"I showed restraint," Raiyan said, looking entirely too pleased with himself.

"You weaponized caffeine," she said. "That's a crime."

His gaze dropped to his shirt, then to hers. "Prove it."

She lifted her chin, proud and entirely unbothered. "I'm a law student."

He didn't answer right away, just studied her long enough that she almost filled the silence herself. "Of course," he said slowly, like he was filing it away somewhere he could find it again. "That explains everything."

"Mhm." She gestured at herself, presenting the evidence, and she was already watching him with that calm, waiting expression, as if she had the next three moves ready and was giving him time to catch up. "I'll buy you a coffee," she added, recovering her rhythm.

He looked at her. "Out of guilt?" he asked, keeping it low, quiet enough that Evan couldn't have heard it, and the terminal seemed to narrow down to the few inches between them.

"Compensation." She made a small pout, looking entirely too pleased with herself. "For igniting your morning tantrum."

His eyes fell to her mouth again, and this time he didn't pretend otherwise. She could have offered him any excuse at all and he would have taken it. No one had spoken to him like that in his adult life, and she hadn't asked who he was either, and he realized he had been waiting for her to, and that she wasn't going to.

"I thought it was for ruining my shirt," he said, because he wasn't ready to let that go yet.

She smiled, slow and satisfied. "Try not to assault anyone else with beverages today." Then she turned and walked away without looking back. At the end of the corridor her hand went to her wrist, the one he had held, and the crowd closed around her before he could be sure of what he had seen.

He didn't move. He listened to her heels, quick and a little uneven again, until the crowd took the sound from him, and only then did he realize he had been counting the clicks. For one ridiculous second he considered following her.

Behind him, Evan was holding out the phone Raiyan had dropped, a hairline crack running across one corner. "Raiyan?"

Raiyan took it, and something pricked at his cuff. A small vintage gold claw clip was caught against the button, still warm from her hair, with Zee engraved in tiny script along one side. He should have called after her, but he put it in his pocket instead. "Interesting," was all he offered, and the scent of dark jasmine, rain, and warm vanilla still clung to his ruined shirt.

"Raiyan." Evan's voice snapped him back. "We're going to miss the board meeting."

He looked once more at the corridor she had disappeared into, and then he walked away.

By the time they reached Axis Tech's twentieth floor, Evan was still studying him. "Did you just sip her coffee? And then spill it back on her?" he asked, and when Raiyan kept walking without an answer, he went on, still staring like Raiyan had grown a second head. "For as long as I've known you, you're basically a germaphobe. You don't even drink from other people's glasses."

Raiyan's hand paused on the boardroom door. You weaponized caffeine. The corner of his mouth moved before he could catch it.

"What happened to my best friend?" Evan asked.

Raiyan pushed open the boardroom door. "Shut up and move on, Evan."

Present day.

"Sir." Michael's voice cut clean through the memory.

Raiyan blinked once, and Heathrow disappeared and Geneva returned. His eyes dropped to his sleeve, an old reflex checking for a stain that hadn't existed in years. In a drawer at the manor there was a small vintage gold clip engraved with Zee that he had never explained to anyone, and he breathed in slowly, locked the memory away, and turned back.

"Nelson called. The manor's ready, and Mrs. Mansoor will be back by the weekend," Michael said.

"I'll pick her up myself," Raiyan said, his voice steady again. "Make sure security stays with her. And increase security at the manor, with Liyana."

Michael nodded and returned to his tablet.

Raiyan looked once toward the terminal doors. Six years ago she had walked away without once looking back, but this time he already knew exactly where to find her.