Chapter 27 Future Plans
FUTURE PLANS
The city sped by as I tried to settle my breathing, still feeling the phantom pressure of the man’s arms around me, still hearing the echo of footsteps closing in.
Janie sat beside me with a poise that felt worlds away from the panic curling inside my chest. She was silent for most of this inner turmoil, her gaze fixed out the window, her gloved hand resting elegantly in her lap.
The contrast between us made something in me tighten, a strange mix of curiosity and something embarrassingly close to jealousy…
for entirely different reasons than before.
She held confidence that I was in awe of.
I swallowed before speaking.
“How… how do you know Thane?” I asked softly, hating the faint tremor in my own voice.
Janie turned her head, her dark hair shifting like silk across her shoulder as she studied me with calm amusement. The visible corner of her mouth curved into a knowing smile.
“We go way back,” she said lightly.
The words made my stomach clench. I looked down, fiddling with the strap of my bag, unable to hide the insecurity threading through me, but it slipped out before I could stop it.
“Did you two ever… date or something?”
For a moment, Janie simply stared. Then she burst into laughter. Not the mocking kind, but a genuine, surprised laugh that filled the sleek interior of the car with unexpected warmth. She pressed a hand to her stomach as if the absurdity of the idea physically hurt.
“Oh, sweetheart, no,” she said, wiping a tear of amusement from the corner of one eye. “Thane doesn’t date.” She paused, then added with a soft, pointed smile, “Well… not until you came along.”
Heat rushed to my cheeks, and my pulse fluttered wildly against my throat. I tried to hide the small smile pulling at my lips, but Janie caught it anyway.
“So… did you go to school together or something?” I tried again, needing to understand their connection. This time her laugh was softer, more melancholy, as if the truth carried a weight I could not yet grasp. Then she released a sigh.
“Something like that,” she murmured, her tone warm yet evasive.
I waited for her to explain, but when she didn’t, she just left me with more questions than answers. It was as if the more I asked, the more gently she deflected, until I finally realized I couldn’t pry Thane’s secrets out of her any more than I could pry them out of him.
“It’s Thane’s story to tell,” she said at last, her voice dipped in quiet finality. “And trust me, little dreamer… he will tell you. He just needs to believe he is worthy of you first.”
The words stole the air from my lungs. Worthy of me. The idea of Thane, this fierce, powerful, impossible man, seeing himself as unworthy, felt like something I was not equipped to hold. I touched my chest lightly, feeling the ache that bloomed there.
The car slowed.
Janie reached forward, tapping the glass partition to signal the driver. When the vehicle eased to a stop, she turned to me with an expression that was equal parts gentle and firm.
“We’re here.”
I blinked, confused, until she opened her door and stepped out, gesturing for me to follow.
I slipped out of the car and looked up at the building before us.
It was tall enough to look intimidating, but its exterior was rough around the edges.
The brick was weathered, the metal fire escape groaning faintly in the breeze.
It looked… tired. Forgotten by the world.
Nothing like the pristine skyscraper I lived in.
Janie walked confidently toward a side entrance hidden beneath a sagging awning. She dug into her coat pocket and pulled out a key. The metal glinted faintly under the dim streetlight as she pressed it into my hand.
“This is his, use it,” she said, and I stared down at the key before looking up at her in shock.
“Wait, you’re giving me a key to Thane’s apartment?”
She lifted one elegant brow.
“You need a safe place, and he needs a reason not to lose his mind searching for you. And since I am the only one he doesn’t scare off within five minutes, I decided to intervene before he reaches the stage of… um… let us call it, a catastrophic overreaction.”
I swallowed hard, gripping the key tightly, the weight of it settling into my palm with a strange mixture of fear and comfort.
Janie pushed open the door to his building and motioned for me to go inside.
“Up the stairs, the top floor. It’s the only door with a reinforced lock. You will know it when you see it.”
Then she leaned closer, her hair brushing my cheek in a whisper of silk, her voice dropping into something quiet enough to feel rather than hear.
“And, Alora… whatever you think he is… he is worse. But for you, he will learn to be better.”
Before I could even form a reply, she straightened with a small, enigmatic smile tugging at her lips and stepped back toward the waiting car.
The door opened as if anticipating her, the interior lighting casting her in a brief halo of cool white before swallowing her silhouette entirely.
I opened my mouth, some mix of confusion, fear, and curiosity rising to the surface, but the car door shut before any sound could escape me.
The driver pulled away a heartbeat later, the sleek vehicle sliding back into the stream of city traffic without a trace, leaving me standing alone beneath the flickering light.
The echo of her words clung to me, heavy and unsettling.
Whatever you think he is… he is worse.
But for you, he will learn to be better.
I stayed rooted to the bottom step for several long breaths, replaying that cryptic warning until the meaning tangled itself into knots I could not unravel.
He is worse… The word pricked something deep in my gut, conjuring every instinctive fear I had ignored since the night he saved me.
The way he moved. The way people reacted to him.
The way he seemed to be constantly at war with something inside himself.
Janie had said it so calmly, as though the truth was too large to fit into a single explanation, and too dangerous to offer to someone who hadn’t earned it.
And yet she followed it with something gentler, something that lodged beneath my ribs like an ache.
But for you, he will learn to be better.
Better. For me.
The idea felt impossible. Terrifying. Beautiful.
I found myself climbing the stairs almost mechanically, my fingers trailing along the cold railing as if touching something grounded could steady the flurry of thoughts spinning inside me.
I kept glancing back, half expecting Janie to reappear with more riddles.
Half hoping she might explain what exactly Thane was, what she meant by worse.
But the hallway remained empty, the echoes fading behind me, leaving only the whisper of her warning twining through my thoughts.
By the time I reached the third floor, my mind was a storm of questions with no answers. Even when I found his apartment and unlocked the heavy locks, even when I stepped inside, and even when I stood in the dim quiet of his home, Janie’s words followed me like a ghost clinging to me.
His apartment was… simple. Clean. But worn in a way that whispered of long nights and little comfort.
The furniture was mismatched but tidy, the walls rough with peeling paint, the light dim but warm enough not to feel cold.
It was not the kind of place you invited people to. It was the kind of place you hid in.
Yet somehow… it felt more like home than my father’s penthouse ever had.
My gaze drifted over the small kitchenette, the battered couch, the window that looked out over the city’s oldest district.
And then to the far corner where a bed sat, neatly made but undeniably worn, the dark sheets faintly rumpled as if he had left them in a hurry.
The sight of that bed stole my breath.
Everything from the last few days, the fear, the kiss, the danger, and the confusion crashed into me all at once. The exhaustion I had been fighting finally caught up with me, dragging heavy chains of fatigue across my body. My knees wobbled as I crossed the room and sank onto the edge of the bed.
His scent surrounded me instantly.
Warm. Dark. A hint of spice and something earthy I could never name. It wrapped around me like a blanket, comforting in a way that made my throat tighten with emotion.
I lay down slowly, curling onto his pillow, burying my face into the soft fabric that still held his warmth. An involuntary sigh escaped my lips as the scent lulled my frayed nerves, smoothing the jagged edges of everything I had survived tonight.
For the first time since the alley, since he told me to go…
I felt safe.
My eyelids grew heavy, my breath deepened, and as the world faded into darkness, one last thought drifted through me with soft, aching certainty.
I was in his bed.
And somehow…
It felt like the safest place in the world.