Chapter 6 #3
His eyes darken, following the movement of my hand. "So can I." He steps closer, not touching me now but close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from his body. "I've wanted to do that since the charity auction. Since you trembled in my arms for those three minutes and forty-seven seconds."
The specificity of the timeframe startles me. "You remember exactly how long we danced?"
"I remember everything about that night," he says simply. "Just as I'll remember everything about tonight."
The intensity in his voice sends a shiver down my spine—not fear, but something deeper, more primal. Recognition, maybe. Or surrender.
"What is this, Christian?" I finally ask, the question that's been building all night. "What are we doing?"
He studies me for a long moment, his expression unreadable. "Do you need a label for it?"
"I need to understand it," I counter. "This isn't…normal for me. I don't get kissed by billionaires at fancy galas. I don't wear dresses that cost more than my monthly rent. I don't fit in this world."
"Perhaps it's not about fitting into my world," he suggests, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers lingering against my cheek. "Perhaps it's about creating a new one. Together."
The suggestion steals my breath. "We barely know each other."
"Don't we?" His thumb traces my jawline, a feather-light touch that makes my pulse leap.
"I know you're brave enough to build a business from your grandmother's legacy.
I know you create beauty with your hands.
I know you blush when you're nervous, and your eyes darken when you're aroused, and you taste like everything I've ever wanted without knowing I was looking. "
His words wash over me, seductive in their certainty. It would be so easy to fall into this—into him—to let Christian Hawthorne dictate the terms of whatever this is between us. Too easy.
"And what do I know about you?" I challenge, needing to assert some independence before I drown in his pull. "Besides your name and your reputation?"
Something flickers in his eyes—surprise, perhaps, that I'm pushing back. "What would you like to know?"
The question is an opening, an invitation to dig deeper. I take it.
"Why me?" I ask, the question that's been haunting me since the charity auction. "You could have anyone. Why focus all this—" I gesture between us, at the intensity crackling in the air "—on me?"
He doesn't answer immediately, which surprises me. Christian Hawthorne seems like a man who always has answers ready.
"Because you're real," he says finally, echoing what he told me during our dance. "In a world of careful calculations and strategic moves, you're genuinely yourself. No agenda, no manipulation. Just Sophie."
The sincerity in his voice catches me off guard. It sounds like the truth—or at least, his version of it.
"That can't be enough," I insist.
"It is for me." His hand cups my cheek, thumb brushing across my lower lip, still sensitive from our kiss. "The question is: is it enough for you?"
I swallow hard, caught in his gaze like a deer in headlights. "I don't know what you mean."
"Yes, you do." His voice drops lower, more intimate. "Is it enough that I want you? That I've thought about nothing but you for six weeks? That I orchestrated this entire evening just to have you here, with me?"
The admission—that none of this was coincidence, that he'd planned it all—should alarm me. Instead, it sends a thrill of something dangerous and exhilarating through my veins.
"The display of my ornaments..." I begin, struggling to hold onto the business premise that brought me here.
"A convenient truth," he admits without apology. "Your work is exceptional. But I would have found any excuse to bring you into my world, Sophie."
My heart pounds so loudly I'm sure he can hear it. "This is too fast."
"Is it?" he challenges. "Or is it exactly the pace it should be?"
His confidence is intoxicating—the absolute certainty with which he pursues what he wants. What he wants being, inexplicably, me.
"I'm afraid," I confess, the words barely audible.
His expression softens minutely. "Of me?"
"Of this." I gesture between us again. "Of how…overwhelming it is. How complete. I feel like I'm losing myself before I've even found my footing."
"You're not losing anything," he says, his hand sliding to the nape of my neck, warm and solid. "You're gaining something. Someone who sees you. Really sees you."
His words strike a chord deep within me—the loneliness I've carried since my grandmother died, the sense that no one truly sees beyond the cheerful shopkeeper with her handmade ornaments.
Christian does see me. I felt it in his kiss, in the way he's looked at me all night.
Not as an acquisition or a curiosity, but as someone of value. Of worth.
And that's what terrifies me most—how badly I want to believe him. How easily I could surrender to this pull between us, let myself belong to him in ways I've never belonged to anyone.
"I need time," I say, not pulling away but not yielding further either. "This is…a lot to process."
Something flashes in his eyes—impatience, perhaps—but he controls it quickly. "The night is still young," he says, dropping his hand from my neck but capturing my fingers in his. "And I'm a patient man. When the prize is worth waiting for."
The way he says "prize" should offend me, but the reverence in his tone transforms it from objectification to appreciation. As if I'm something precious he's discovered, not a trophy to be won.
Around us, the gala continues—laughter, music, the occasional squeal as another couple is caught beneath the mistletoe. But in our quiet corner, time seems suspended, reality altered. I stand at a crossroads, torn between caution and desire, between self-preservation and surrender.
"What happens now?" I ask, my voice steadier than I feel.
Christian's fingers tighten around mine, his thumb tracing small circles on my wrist where my pulse beats a rapid tattoo. His smile is slow, confident, full of promise.
"Now," he says, "we continue where we left off."
And God help me, I want nothing more than to follow wherever he leads.