Chapter 2
IN THE SHADOW OF HER FLAME
Not every fire is meant to warm
Dorian
Out of all the clubs in the whole damn world, she walked into mine. Just like in the movies. Only this isn’t a movie. This is my life. My curse.
I hadn’t planned to be at Excalibur tonight. I barely show up on weekends anymore. But something restless had been crawling under my skin all day. A hum I couldn’t quiet.
Now I know why.
I was at the back entrance, heading for the office, when something pulled at me. Like an invisible string snapping taut beneath my ribs. I turned. And I saw it.
A flash of red. A dress clinging to a body I knew better than my own shadow.
Shimmering under the neon lights, hugging her curves like flame licking over skin.
Her hair—pulled into a high, defiant ponytail—exposed her neck, her posture, her control.
Chestnut waves still managed to spill down her back.
And her hips... swayed like a rhythm I’ve never unlearned.
My heart didn’t just stop. It detonated.
Because even before my brain caught up, my body already knew. She was here.
Della.
And I wasn’t ready.
God, I wasn’t ready to see her again. And definitely not like that. Pinned to the wall. Another man inside her. Her hands on his back. Her eyes… empty.
Like the soul behind them had been extinguished.
And that wrecked me.
She didn’t see me at first. I just stood there. Frozen. The breath knocked out of me like I’d been punched in the chest. But when her eyes finally found mine—
I saw it.
Not hate. Not love. Worse. Nothing.
I pour myself a glass of whiskey from the small cabinet by the wall. The amber liquid sloshes in the crystal tumbler, but my hand is steady. Too steady. Like calm before collapse.
David walks in without knocking. Of course. He never knocks. Never had to.
I don’t even look at him. Just stare into the whiskey glass.
“She is here.” I let him know.
“She?”
I don’t answer. I let the weight of it hang in the room.
And then I see it hit him.
“No. Della?”
I nod once.
“She walked into my club. Into that booth. Wearing that insane red dress. She ...” My jaw tightens so hard my temples throb. I don’t finish the sentence. I don’t have to.
David sinks into the leather couch with a long exhale.
“All this time. And she shows up now? Out of nowhere?”
“Out of a fucking cab. Just like that. No notice. No warning. Nothing.”
The anger sizzles out of me almost as fast as it came.
“But I wasn’t ready. Not to see her like that. Not… with someone else.”
“You still love her,” David says, voice low.
I turn to him.
“Even when I hated her for vanishing. Even when I tried to forget—”
The room falls quiet. Thick with the ghosts of everything I never said.
David leans forward, elbows on his knees.
“Then remind me—why did you let her go?”
I exhale hard.
“You remember what it was like back then. We lost the retail contract; I was drowning in debt. I thought… I thought I’d fix it. Get everything stable. Then go back for her and bring her back here. To the life we dreamt of.”
“So why the hell didn’t you tell her that?”
“Because she was gone. For over a month, I tried everything. Called every day—nothing. I didn’t have any contacts in her hometown. No family, no friends I could reach out to.” My voice drops. “She… disappeared.”
David narrows his eyes.
“Did you try again? Later?”
I shake my head, guilt heavy in my gut.
“I couldn’t. Not after the deal I made.”
David stiffens.
“What deal?”
I stare down at the glass, as if it might shield me from the truth.
“I thought she left me, Dave. I really did. One day, Leah walked into my office like the fucking devil herself, offering help.”
My jaw clenches, and pain flickers behind my ribs like an old wound reopening.
I exhale slowly, the truth weighing heavier than it ever has.
“You remember the money. How suddenly everything got paid off. You asked me a hundred times where it came from.”
“You told me it was the bank. A loan.”
I shake my head. “It wasn’t the bank. It was Leah.”
His face stills.
“Leah? The ex-wife who left you with a shattered leg and an empty home?”
“She showed up six weeks after Della left. Said she could help. That she had a massive real estate project and needed a contractor. She’d cover everything—debts, payroll, the whole thing.”
David’s voice sharpens. “At what cost?”
I look away. “Della.”
The room drops a degree.
“Jesus, Dorian.”
“She said if I wanted the deal, I needed to be all-in, no distractions. No ties. No wasted time searching for Della.”
David leans back like he’s been punched. “And you never told me.”
“I was drowning, Dave. She threw me a rope. A poisonous one, yeah—but I took it. And hated myself for it every day since.”
I pause, the words catching in my throat.
More to myself than to him, I add “She even showed me pictures.”
He shakes his head.
“All this time, I thought you took some shady loan.”
I shrug bitterly.
“I paid every damn cent back in two years. But it didn’t matter. By then, it was too late. Damage done.”
I down the rest of the whiskey in one swallow. It burns, but it’s not enough. Not enough to erase the image of her in someone else’s arms.
I close my eyes. But it’s still there.
Her body. That dress. The emptiness in her eyes. Like I’d already lost her twice.
My mind spins, dragged backward—pulled into the memory I never stopped carrying. Back to when I first saw her.
* * *
5 years ago
I hadn’t even wanted to go out that night. David had dragged me to Excalibur.
“You need air, Dorian. A drink. A night without numbers and bricks and bank notices.”
We had just lost a major investor for a suburban development outside Northfield. Tensions were high. Money was tight. I had limped out of a four-hour meeting with my lawyer, then spent another two standing in the middle of a half-gutted construction site, arguing over permits and concrete.
I had not much left. Not broke. But drained.
And then—there she was.
I saw her across the space like a jolt of light in a pitch-black tunnel.
Her laugh cracked something open in me.
That hair—wild in the most beautiful way, tumbling in loose curly waves down to the middle of her back. Chestnut, with copper undertones that caught the light like flame. Natural. Untamed. Like her.
She was petite, almost delicate, but her body moved with confidence—all soft curves in all the right places, impossible not to notice.
That red shirt clung to her shoulders like temptation incarnate.
Her hands moved through the air like she was painting the music itself. And those eyes—green, bright, alive—like she saw more of the world than anyone else in the room.
She didn’t just walk. She moved like rhythm built her. Beat by beat. Note by note.
She didn’t dance to the music—she was the music.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
“Who is she?” I asked David, nodding in her direction.
He shrugged.
“No idea. She walked in with a couple of girls. Foreign, maybe. You’re staring.”
“I know.”
A few drinks later and I still hadn’t stopped. Couldn’t.
She was at the bar now. Alone. Perched on a high stool, legs crossed, a cocktail glass in one hand. Her blouse shimmered under the lights with every turn of her shoulder. The long asymmetrical sleeve slipping just slightly, exposing skin I wanted to touch.
Her lips—bare, full—sipped from the rim with a lazy, deliberate grace.
She wasn’t drinking to get drunk. She was drinking to savour it.
And beside her, in a small glass bowl, sat a few crumpled red foil wrappers—Valentine’s edition Hershey’s Kisses.
I blinked.
“Seriously? Who the hell eats chocolate at a bar?”
She did.
She picked one up with those elegant fingers, turning it slowly, studying it like it held secrets. Then she peeled it slowly. Like a ritual. Like seduction.
She didn’t eat it right away.
No. She brought it to her lips—those lips—and pressed the tip of the kiss to her mouth with this teasing reverence. Her eyes fluttered shut.
And when the chocolate hit her tongue, she sighed. Low. Intimate.
I felt something jolt through me. Sharp. Immediate. Carnal.
“What the hell? I didn’t know chocolate could do that to a man.”
I moved toward her before I could stop myself.
She noticed me as I stepped up beside her and gave me a playful, sideways smile.
“Do you always stare like that, or is it just me?”
Her accent—soft, melodic. European.
“Only the ones who make eating chocolate look like a sin,” I said, amused.
She smiled holding up the red foil with the small tag still attached.
“Why do they call them kisses?” she asked, eyes sparkling with amusement as she pressed the tiny chocolate to her lips.
I smirked.
“Probably because they fit your mouth perfectly.”
She chuckled, low and playful, leaning in just enough to make my pulse skip.
“That was smooth. Dangerous kind of smooth.”
I offered my hand.
“Dorian.”
She took it, warm and light.
“Della.”
There was a pause. A flicker of recognition neither of us could name yet.
“You’re not from around here.”
“Was it the chocolate?” she asked, feigning shock, a smile tugging at her lips.
“Not the chocolate,” I said, voice low. “The fire.”
She raised a brow, caught somewhere between amused and intrigued.
“You’re like wildfire on the dance floor.” I stepped closer, fingers brushing the edge of her sleeve. “And this red shirt of yours? Pure trouble wrapped in silk.”
She laughed—deep and full, the kind of sound that hit straight in the chest and stayed there.
“So, you’re the poetic type.”
Her green eyes sparkled, playful and sharp, like she already knew the answer and was just enjoying the game.
“No.” I exhaled. “I’m the tired type.”
“Then why are you here?”
I should’ve said something clever. Instead, I told her the truth.
“Trying to remember what it feels like to be alive.”
She leaned closer, lips nearly brushing my ear.
“So, tell me, Dorian—do you dance, or just like to watch?”
Her voice was soft. Teasing. And I swear I could hear her smile.
“I do,” I murmured. “Both.”
I slid my hands around her waist and lifted her off the stool.
The feel of her mignon body, the sight of her soft curves pressed against my open shirt, her fresh floral scent—they conquered all my senses, and everything else blurred...
All I could think about was how she might taste—how I wanted to be that chocolate on her lips.
“Dance me.” She said locking her eyes onto mine.
Something inside me came back to life. So, we danced until the music blurred.
Then we stepped outside into the cool night, where the music didn’t follow. And talked. About everything. About nothing.
She told me she was a Romanian student, staying with a host family in the suburbs while completing her one-year college program. About how this country felt like freedom — like space to stretch her wings. How, somehow, here she felt more at home than the place she came from.
She was twenty-one. All red lips and curiosity.
I was twenty-eight and reckless. A mess. But already sure: I wanted her. In every way that mattered.
* * *
I exhale and lean forward, elbows on my knees, burying my face in my hands, slowly pulling my hair.
"She was like a sunlight,” I whisper. “That first strong, gorgeous, obnoxious ray of light that forces your eyes open in the morning. I wasn’t really living back then. Just… existing. And somehow, she still walked toward me. Smiling. Dancing.”
David moves closer, rests a hand on my shoulder.
“She’s here now,” he says.
“Not the same.” I shake my head slowly, the truth biting into my gut.
“The fire’s gone, David. Her light... it’s darkness now. And I can’t stop wondering why, what happened.”
The silence between us feels thick. Heavy. Then David says—calm, quiet, almost like a dare.
“Then find out. Light it back up, Dorian.”
I lift my gaze, something tight pulling in my chest. I want to say I can’t. That it’s too late. That she’s too far gone. But the words die in my throat. Because the truth?
I carved her name into my soul that first night. No one—and nothing—will ever erase or replace what she was, is, and always will be to me.
I rise and move to the window overlooking the dance floor. The neon below bleeds red and gold across the glass, pulsing with the music. With memory.
Five years ago, I let her go. I buried my heart in steel and concrete, in deadlines and deals. I worked to exhaustion, desperate to numb the ache in my chest and scrub the scent of her memory from my skin.
Still, I never called again.
Not because I didn’t want to but because I was afraid. Afraid she’d moved on, she’d hear my voice and not feel a thing. That she’d forgotten me.
And because of the damn deal.
I knew if I’d heard her voice... I wouldn’t have been able to stay away. Everything would’ve unraveled. I would’ve run to her, deal be damned.
And now… she’s here.
"I didn’t think I’d ever see her again,” I murmur. “And now she came back a ghost of herself. I need to see that fire again.”
My fists clench at my sides.
Maybe I don’t deserve another chance and maybe she’ll never look at me the same again. But if there’s even a flicker left in her… If she’s going to burn again, even for a moment, I want to be the flame that brings her back.
Even if I get burned in the process.
Because this isn’t just a second chance.
It’s the beginning of a war I can’t afford to lose.