Chapter One #2
I haven’t seen her in ten years, and I still remember everything about her—her laugh, her mouth, her long pale curls, the way she climbed into my lap like it was as natural as breathing. The heat of her skin against mine, the way she looked at me like I was her rock. Something worth fighting for.
Every deployment. Every bunker. Every night staring at a ceiling in some hellhole, telling myself I’d come back stronger. Worthy. Able to stand before my father without breaking.
And with bits of my paychecks over the years, I bought a small house when I was overseas, hoping—promising to myself—when I could return, we’d spend our lives together there.
Half a year in boot camp and SOI training, then several deployments all over the world. I did anything and everything to avoid being found by my father’s people. And I’ve carried that choice for a decade.
Then after about nine-and-a-half years, I found out the bastard croaked.
I didn’t go to the asshole’s funeral. Didn’t give a shit what my parent’s “friends” thought or would gossip about.
Especially when they were the ones who pretended to not have known his behavior toward me from the time I was a kid.
Fuck them.
Instead, I requested an early honorable discharge that same day.
I got out two months later and immediately flew out on the red-eye to Dallas.
Wanting to build a life outside of my family, I got myself a job at Knight Industries as their head of security and a small apartment for rent that’s only a few blocks from Lyla’s apartment complex.
I came back to claim what was mine—my name, my life, my future.
And still…
None of it matters. None of that compares to the one thing I truly want back.
I drag my folder closer and start sorting. Paperwork. Titles. Estates. Debts. Despite the busy work, it’s nothing more than a distraction. Because the moment I stop, the same thought crashes in, uninvited and relentless.
Where is she doing now?
Despite being overseas, I’d found ways to keep quiet tabs on her and at least know what she was up to. No way for my father to find out, in case he was still watching her, waiting to see if I’d make contact.
But I quickly discovered I could do much more for her once I was back in Dallas and my old man died. Nothing that she’d notice. Nothing that would touch her life directly.
Her apartment building’s security was shit—outdated camera, dim lighting. One anonymous call fixed that. New system. Better locks. And none of it could lead back to me.
When a vendor tried to screw her business, doors opened elsewhere. A “friend of the company” stepped in. Terms shifted. The asshole folded.
When a big client wavered, the booking stabilized. A payment cleared that shouldn’t have. The right strings were pulled.
Everything I did, and continue to do in the shadows, is to keep her world turning. To keep her safe.
Because even from a distance, she’s mine to protect.
She doesn’t know. She doesn’t need to. I just need her safe.
Most would call me obsessed. I call it restraint.
My phone vibrates across the desk, the insistent vibration, yanking me back into the present and slicing through the quiet focus of the office like an unwelcome intrusion.
I glance at the screen and see a number I don’t recognize glaring back at me in bold white text.
For a moment, I consider letting it go to voicemail, but after the third ring, something nudges me to answer—curiosity, boredom, or maybe just the need for a break from the seemingly endless reports on the table. I swipe to accept the call.
“Bennett,” I say, keeping my tone clipped and professional, already half-expecting a telemarketer or some distant relative coming out of the woodwork chasing family ties.
“Scott Bennett?” The voice on the line hesitates, laced with a nervous tremor that rings faintly familiar, though I can’t pin it down right away.
“Yeah. Who is this?”
A quick, awkward laugh filters through. “It’s Alex Davis—from high school. You might not remember me all that well; I was the one always buried in my Nintendo Switch, barely looking up from a Pokémon battle during lunch.”
The memory sharpens into focus: curly hair flopping over his forehead, that perpetual glow from the handheld screen lighting his face in the cafeteria shadows. He was quiet, unassuming, but yeah—I remember him now. “Alex. Long time. What’s going on?”
He exhales audibly, as if gathering courage. “Right to business; I like that. So I’m in casting these days, working for Apex Entertainment. We’re putting the final touches on contestants for our new dating show—Paradise Found.”
Dating show. The phrase hangs there, absurd and irrelevant to my world of security protocols and estate management.
My thumb itches toward the End Call button, ready to politely, but quickly, dismiss this blast from the past and get back to the mountain of work that’s consumed me since my old man’s death—the endless days at Knight Industries as head of security, the tangled inheritance of the family estate, and stepping into the void he left in his business empire.
But Alex barrels on before I can disconnect. “One of our contestants is someone you know, back from high school.”
Great, but…what does this have to do with me?
High school was several lifetimes ago. So unless he’s reminiscing, I struggle to understand why he’s calling me. And someone I know could be any number of forgotten faces. I pause, more out of politeness than interest, my hand still hovering near the phone. “Who?”
“Lyla Clark.”
Her name crashes over me like a rogue wave—cold, forceful, knocking the air from my lungs in a single, brutal instant.
For a frozen second, the world narrows to that sound, echoing in my chest. Heat flares through my veins, a savage burn that races down my spine and settles low in my gut, twisting into something feral and unforgiving.
Surprise hits first, sharp as a blade, followed by a shockwave of regret and a raw, aching need.
Lyla. The one I’ve been circling in my mind for months, ever since Dad’s funeral stripped away the excuses and left me raw with the urge to physically be with her again, to explain the mess of ten years ago.
But life piled on: the relentless demands of my work with the Knights, the estates’ legal quagmire, the business I never wanted but couldn’t abandon.
And beneath it all, the coward’s fear. That if I showed up now, she’d slam the door in my face, her eyes full of the hurt I’d inflicted when I vanished without a trace.
She’s on a dating show.
The realization weaves through the chaos in my head.
Time is slipping away—faster than I realized.
For all I know, she’s there to find someone else, to build a connection with a stranger who won’t carry my ghosts.
The thought ignites a fresh surge of panic, hot and possessive, clawing at the eyes of my control.
The time I have now could be my last chance to win her back or, at least, lay bare the truth of why I left before she leaves for production and moves on for good.
But a darker thread weaves through my brain. Alex’s call feels too pointed, too convenient. He knew us back then. He would’ve seen how inseparable we were, how the air between us always crackled.
“Why are you calling me about this?” I ask, voice low and edged. “It’s not like I can do anything about it.”
“That’s not…entirely true.”
“How so?”
He pauses long enough that I can practically hear his nerves fraying. “I shouldn’t be telling you this.”
“Telling me what?”
Another pause, heavier this time.
“Alex,” I say, sharper now, “you called me for a reason. And I’m pretty sure it wasn’t just to give me a play-by-play of what Lyla’s doing on your show.”
I hear him exhale deeply on the other end. “If I tell you, this conversation didn’t happen.”
That serious, huh?
My grip tightens on the phone. “Done. Just tell me.”
“I’m so getting fired for this,” he mutters. “You’re not supposed to know this until day one of filming, but the show isn’t for singles; it’s not even called Paradise Found. It’s another season of The One That Got Away. You know it?”
“Not really.”
“Basically, it’s the same structure of a regular dating show, but the whole thing revolves around a group of people reconnecting with their most significant exes. None of the contestants we’ve selected have any idea this is happening.”
The words detonate in slow motion. My pulse slams in my throat. Every muscle locks as the full picture snaps into focus. Lyla, on cable television, will be facing a significant ex from her past. And given this entire conversation…
It’s me.
The room tilts. My grip tightens on the phone, knuckles paling, every muscle coiled like I’m bracing for impact. I ghosted her. I disappeared without explanation. I don’t deserve her—not after everything. But damn if this doesn’t feel like fate shoving me toward the edge, daring me to jump.
I stare at my father’s portrait like it might laugh. Choice. That’s what he’s offering.
The line hums with silence. Alex waits.
A sane man would say no. A sane man wouldn’t walk in front of cameras and manufactured drama just for one woman. But I haven’t been sane, where Lyla is concerned, since I was eighteen.
“When does filming start?”
He hesitates only a second. “First day of shooting is in two weeks.”
I have fourteen days, maybe less, to decide whether I’m going to walk into a televised ambush, hand over every private wound we ever shared to a production team hungry for drama, and pray she doesn’t hate me more when the cameras stop rolling.
Also in that time, I have to convince myself I can keep my hands off her long enough to say the words I should have said a decade ago.
By the end of this, I either finally get her back, or I could lose her forever. I’m willing to do whatever it takes for the former, even if it means making an ass of myself to do it.
I close my eyes, the ghost of her scent—vanilla and jasmine—curling through my memory like smoke.
“Send me the contract,” I say.
Alex lets out a shaky laugh. “You’re serious?”
“Dead serious.”
Another exhale, this one almost relieved. “Okay. I’ll email it tonight. Nondisclosure is ironclad. You breathe a word of this before the reveal, we’re both done.”
“Understood.”
“And, Scott?” His voice drops, quieter now. “I’m glad you’re doing this.”
I end the call before he can say anything else.
The phone clatters onto the desk. My heart is still hammering, a violent rhythm that echoes in every inch of my skin. I stare at the dark screen, seeing nothing but her—Lyla Clark, ten years older, ten years more beautiful, ten years more dangerous to me than she ever was at eighteen.
I’m going to see her again. Going to touch her again. And this time, I’m not walking away.