Chapter 4
Alexander
I should have walked away. I knew that. Knew the correct protocol, the chain of command, the professional distance men like me were expected to maintain.
I should’ve handed you off to HR, to security, to anyone paid to care about things like boundaries and liability.
But your eyes were glassy with champagne, shimmering like something breakable.
Your lips parted on uneven breaths as you tried—and failed—to gather yourself. Your pulse fluttered in your throat like a trapped bird. And I couldn’t leave you. Not tonight. Not like that. Not when everything in me screamed to stay.
You stood in front of me on the balcony, shivering in that black satin dress that hugged you like a secret.
Your arms crossed beneath your chest, pushing your curves higher, making you look both defiant and devastating.
Completely unaware of the chaos you stirred inside me—chaos I had spent a lifetime killing in other men but never recognizing in myself.
“You’re drunk,” I said. Softer than I intended.
My voice didn’t soften. My voice was an instrument of control—cold, clean, and efficient. But with you… it altered. It warmed. It betrayed me in ways I hadn’t allowed since I was young enough to be stupid and reckless.
I stepped closer.
A deliberate violation of the distance I maintained with everyone else. “You shouldn’t be here alone.”
Your breath caught. Barely. But subtlety never escaped me. I noticed everything—your inhale, your tension, the faint sway of your knees fighting the champagne. Every molecule of unease and desire that pulsed off you like heat.
“You didn’t have to step in,” you whispered, trying for composure but failing beautifully. That tiny tremor in your voice gave you away.
“Yes,” I said, holding your gaze. “I did.”
My hand moved before I authorized it. A breach of my own defenses. Fingers brushing your hair behind your ear, grazing the tender line of your jaw.
Your skin was warm—too warm. You flinched, not from fear but from surprise, as if you never expected a man like me to touch you gently.
Hell, I didn’t expect it either. The contact shot through me like a live wire.
Something slow, dangerous, claiming. “You don’t like attention,” I murmured. “So why come?”
Your eyes flickered, searching for the safe answer—there wasn’t one. I had cornered you gently, deliberately, testing the wall you’d built around your life. A wall I could see the outlines of but not the foundation. A wall made of survival and stubborn pride.
I wanted to know what forced you into this ballroom. What made you wear a dress you didn’t feel powerful in. What made you tremble like you didn’t think you had the right to exist in spaces like these.
Your silence told me more than your words ever could. And God help me…it made me want you even more.