Chapter 11
ADRIANA
My feet pound the pavement outside Lochlan’s building, my calf muscles tensing with each step.
It’s quiet and dark, and being out here by myself isn’t my brightest move, but I needed to do something to drain the anxious energy that’s been rattling around inside of me.
I chalked it up to a sugar rush, but it’s more than that.
It’s… him. The way he looked at me while I sat there sharing his prized mint chocolate chip, probably analyzing me as hard as I was him. The glimmer of fondness and love in his eyes when he spoke about his brothers. The way my heart hurt when he told me about his mom.
But more than that, it was impossible to sleep when the heat of his gaze had my insides on full boil.
Shit. I feel things. And I don’t want to feel anything.
But so much about him makes me feel like this may become less and less about a business transaction, and more about things I swore off years ago. Feelings make you weak. And I’m not in a position to be perceived as weak.
My mental battle wages until footsteps behind me make my pulse jump.
They’re heavy and fast, getting louder and louder.
Dammit. Any one of Dad’s enemies could have followed us from the reception, lurking, biding their time until I ventured out by myself.
I’m the head of the DiMicheli family now, how could I have been so clueless and careless to think that I’d be safe at four o’clock in the morning?
In the freaking dark with zero protection?
Criminals don’t have bedtimes, for Pete’s sake.
My legs burn as I try to put as much distance between me and the menacing footsteps. Memories of the gala attack chill me. Bullets pop between my temples, my vision stained red with my father’s blood.
I need to run faster… to find some place to hide… to call—
“You know,” Lochlan's voice cuts through the dark, “most people just count sheep.”
I stop short and turn, my throat tight. He jogs toward me in a Red Sox baseball cap, shorts, and a hoodie, already looking like he regrets the decision to come after me.
“What are you doing?” I ask, my jaw nearly hitting the sidewalk.
“Following you.” He stops beside me. “Obviously.”
“I don't need a babysitter,” I say, ignoring the funny little tingles in my belly at the sight of him in a baseball cap. I bite down on my lower lip.
No, I’m not even going to think it.
“Good. I'm not offering to change your diapers.” He glances at me. “But I'm also not letting you run around Boston alone at four in the morning while there's an active threat on your family. I’m surprised at you. As a CEO, shouldn’t you be better at assessing risks?”
My lips part, but no words find their way out. I want to argue. I want to tell him this is mine… the running, the silence, the private space to think. I've been doing this for years without anyone's permission.
But he's not wrong about the threat. And I'm too tired to fight about it.
“Fine,” I finally say. “But I'm not slowing down for you.”
“Didn't ask you to.”
I narrow my eyes and then take off. Every time I pick up the pace, he matches it.
We run in silence for a few blocks. The city is peaceful at this hour, just streetlights and shadows, the occasional cab passing. My feet hit the pavement in a steady rhythm, just like my breathing. In, out. In, out. The only things I can control.
Running is how I survive. It always has been.
In college, when the pressure of being Francesco DiMicheli's daughter threatened to crush me, I ran. When I was building my company and everyone told me I'd fail, I ran. When relationships ended and deals fell through, and especially when the world felt like it was closing in… I ran.
It's the one time when my brain finally shuts up. When I'm not calculating angles or managing perceptions or holding everything together through sheer force of will. I'm just a body in motion. Simple physics. Period. And there’s nobody else in the world but me.
Except now there's a six-foot-something wall of muscle invading my sacred space.
I push harder and will my legs to cooperate.
Lochlan keeps up with me. His breathing is more labored now and his stride is slightly off. His feet hit the ground with power, but he’s struggling. He's built for bursts of strength, not endurance. All that muscle is working against him.
I keep my eyes focused forward, trying like hell to ignore how he moves. But my periphery gives me away and I notice everything. The way his shoulders roll with each stride. The way his cheeks flush, making his eyes pop against his skin. The way his jaw sets with determination when he loses steam.
I hate myself for noticing.
I take a sharp turn onto Commonwealth Avenue. This is my territory. I've run this route a hundred times, I know every crack in the sidewalk to avoid, every tree root waiting to trip the unaware.
His footsteps falter for a second next to me. Then he recovers.
“You always run like you're being chased?” he asks. His voice is tighter now. Less casual. Raspier.
“I run like I have things to think about.”
“At this ungodly hour of the morning?”
“It’s the best time. No one is around to interrupt,” I say with a quick glance at him powering through my torturous morning ritual.
“Present company excluded,” he huffs.
“Present company wasn't invited.” I waggle a finger at him.
He laughs. It comes out a little ragged. “Noted.”
I push harder. Part of me wants to see him quit. To prove that he's like everyone else… all talk until things get difficult. The other part of me, the part I don't want to examine too closely because of what it might mean, wants to see if he'll surprise me.
I’m silently hoping for the latter.
My lungs are burning, but it's the good kind of burn, the kind that incinerates everything else. The wedding. The contract. My father in that hospital bed. The fact that I'm now legally bound to the man gasping for air beside me.
We get to the bridge, but I don't slow down. The Charles River stretches out below us, smooth ripples, black and glittering in the moonlight. My legs scream. I don't listen.
“Fuuuuck,” Lochlan mutters.
I glance over, biting back a snicker. He's still there, still matching me stride for stride, but he’s clearly wearing down. Sweat dripping down the sides of his face, and he might be about two minutes from collapse.
My teeth grit. He also looks unfairly good. Even suffering, even gasping, even clearly regretting every life choice that led him to this moment… he looks like a freaking model out of a magazine. The kind of man who'd make you do a double take on the street.
I tear my gaze away to focus on the road.
He doesn't stop. Doesn't ask me to slow down. Doesn't complain.
He just keeps going. Stubborn. And so hot.
Something shifts in my chest. I hate it.
“You don't run much, do you?” I ask.
“What… what gave it away?” he huffs, definitely struggling now. “The wheezing or the death stare?”
“The form. You're a sprinter, used to short bursts of speed, right? You've got the legs for distance, but not the lungs.”
“Thanks… for the analysis.”
“Told you, it’s what I do.” I give him a half-smile. “You could tap out. I wouldn't judge.”
“Yes, you would,” he pants.
He's right. I would.
I slow down. Just a little. Just enough that he can catch a real breath without it being obvious that I'm doing him a favor.
His jaw tightens. Of course it does. He knows exactly what I did.
“I don't need—"
“Shut up and run, Molloy.”
We loop back toward Back Bay at this slower pace. It’s still brisk but sustainable. My heart rate settles. The chaos in my head starts to quiet. Finally.
This is why I run. Not for fitness. Not for health. For this… the moment when the world shrinks down to nothing but breath and movement and the steady beat of my own pulse. The moment when I can finally think with a clear mind.
Except now I'm not alone in my head. He's there, too.
Lochlan Molloy, eating ice cream at two in the morning. Talking about his mother like she meant everything to him. Watching me with something that isn't calculation or expectation or agenda.
I don't know what to do with any of that. I have never let myself get to that point with any man before.
“Can I ask you something?” he says.
“You're going to anyway, right? No matter what I say?”
“Uh-oh, does that mean you’re getting to know me?” He lets out a breathless laugh. “Why the hell do you run like a damn gazelle? Or rather, what are you running from?”
I think about lying. Giving him some surface answer about cardio and stress relief. But it's almost five in the morning and we're alone in the dark, and for some reason, the truth comes out instead.
“I guess I’m running from expectations, obligations, responsibilities… all the things that crowd my life when I’m Adriana Colonna, CEO. I don't have to be anyone out here.” I pause. “It’s just me. I don’t have anything to prove to anyone. Or myself. It’s a no-judgment zone.”
“I get that.”
“Do you?” I glance at him over my shoulder.
“Yeah.” His breathing is more even now. Still heavier than mine, but steady. “For me, it's the car. The Mustang I'm restoring. When I'm under the hood, covered in grease, it's just me and the engine. Nothing else exists.”
That explains the grease-stained manual on the coffee table I'd noticed earlier. And the pile of books about car restoration in the master bedroom.
“How long have you been working on it?”
“Three years. It's a '69 Mach 1. The previous owner treated it like garbage. I'm bringing it back to life, slowly but surely.”
And just like that, I peeled back another layer.
“That sounds... peaceful, actually.”
“It is.” He's breathing easier now, finding his rhythm as we head back to the building while slivers of orange and pink paint the sky. “There's something about taking something broken and making it whole again. Figuring out what it needs. Being patient with it as you nurture it back into being.”
I glance at his profile. There's something in his voice that tells me he's not just talking about cars.
“Is it close to done?”