38-Kit
It takes an embarrassing amount of time to locate Zachary after the show.
One night; we get one night in a bloody fucking bed, and I won’t be able to sleep until well after midnight. Ridiculous.
Most of these crazed wankers aren’t even fans of the music, simply searching for a quick buck by selling an exclusive peek at the man behind the mask. I know my fans love me; out of millions, I can’t fault them all for the actions of a few dozen.
Perhaps at one point I fantasised about being the object of someone’s obsession, and I don’t like to assume anyone has nefarious intentions with me.
It’s not like I’m in a position to victimise myself.
I hold the power in this dynamic. I know that.
I created this. Yet I’m deserving of my privacy; my life off-stage.
Endymion warned me that power always demands a price, but I never imagined the cost would be them.
I stalk down the hotel corridor with far more purpose than I actually possess.
My pulse hasn’t settled since the show ended, and walking is the only thing that keeps me upright.
Truth is, I’ve no idea what I’m going to say to Zachary once I find her, only that I need to say something.
Need to get the words out before they rot inside me.
I have to confront the way she’s been slipping through the cracks of my carefully constructed distance.
And Christ, after what she said in the botanical gardens, how am I meant to pretend any of this is normal?
She’d been there. There. The night I nearly died, when everything in my life split clean down the middle. I’ve replayed it a hundred times since we left the gardens, and it still doesn’t make a lick of sense. Her voice shaking as she said she saw me on the gurney. That she prayed for me.
How the hell could she have been there? What was she even doing in London? Why would she have been anywhere near that street, that night, at that exact bloody moment?
It’s impossible, and yet she said it with a raw, unfiltered truth I felt in my bones. I hate how much it rattles me. I hate how much she rattles me.
My breath comes out in a shaky exhale. I drag a hand through my hair, tugging at the damp strands. The corridor lights blur at the edges, my thoughts spiralling faster than my feet can carry me. I turn a corner too sharply, shoulder brushing the wallpaper.
None of it is logical; it doesn’t fit into the tidy boxes I’ve forced my life into since the accident. But since the moment I saw her wearing my necklace, Zachary’s never fit into any box.
And now this.
Walking faster, I clench my jaw. I need to know how the hell she ended up in the middle of my worst nightmare. Because right now, the only thing I’m certain of is this:
Nothing about Zachary Blake is coincidence.
I glance over my shoulder. Yensil follows ten paces behind, silent as a shadow.
He’s enormous; six-feet-eight and built like a brick wall with legs, his presence filling the corridor even from a distance.
His dark jacket strains at the seams when he moves, the holster at his hip visible, and always loaded.
He was hired by the record company specifically for the album’s promotion and tour, but he’s become more than a bodyguard.
He’s escorted me to every promotional shoot, studio session, and late-night exit through back alleys.
Right now, he’s the only thing keeping me from turning around and abandoning this folly mission.
Watching Zach slither her way into the middle of hundreds of slamming bodies during tonight’s show was not the distraction I needed on top of all this blasted bollocks. A massive bloke nearly rammed into her at full speed and bloody hell, I almost stopped singing to tell her to move.
Thankfully she had enough sense to look over her shoulder, but for a half a breath, the thought of her getting hurt scared me stiff. I have no problem with her in the crowd, as long as it’s near the barricade. Tonight she went too far. If anything happened to her, I’d feel responsible.
And that fucking terrifies me.
I reach room 1608 and knock insistently. The laughter inside cuts off, and with the flip of a lock, the door swings open. Zach stands in the frame like the apparition of divine femininity. My breath stutters, traitorously loud.
She’s a vision in red, from the heels and dress to the scarlet painted across her pouting lips.
Red shouldn’t look alive, but on her it moves; breathes as though she’s the only one who can wear it without being consumed. There’s something vampiric about it, an intimate danger that can ruin me with a simple glimpse. Red turns her into a pulse. A hunger I have no business wanting to satiate.
The colour worships her, and I’m not far behind.
“Now what did I do?” she asks with a roll of her smokey-lined eyes.
Zach steps into the doorframe. Cigarettes, vanilla and grapefruit wrap around me.
Her hand rests on her hip, accentuating the deep curve of her waist. Brown curls fall across her shoulders and breasts like ripples of melted chocolate.
Her long lashes are coated in a dramatic black, framing that impossibly large phoenix glare.
“I—” I shake my head, trying to recall how words form.
Why is this woman capable of short-circuiting me with a single look?
She steps aside, ushering me in with a flick of her wrist. I duck my head and enter, pulling my hood down.
I always wear a hood or a baseball cap when walking around hotels, anonymity is a fragile thing, and I cling to it like armour.
The oversized thing consumes me, hiding the tattoos on the back of my neck, the cut of my jaw; things some fans can recognise me by.
Her mouth parts, and I fight back a smirk. It’s so beautiful. Full. Red. Soft.
The air shifts as her eyes lift to mine.
It’s as though she’s seeing me for the first time.
And she’s just as startled by it as I am.
Zach studies me with a frightening intensity, like she’s trying to fold me inside-out.
A tiny breath escapes her, and tears well in her brown eyes.
She blinks them away so fast I nearly doubt I saw them. Almost.
“What do you want, Judas?”
I want to kiss you.
“Kit,” I blurt out.
She swallows, gaze flicking away for a heartbeat before returning to mine—steadier but still shining with something raw. Zach knows my name, of course she does, but she’s never used it. Out of respect; some unspoken understanding that I wasn’t ready to give that part of myself.
Until now.
“Call me Kit,” I say, gesturing to my joggers. “Especially when I’m like this.”
“Kit,” she whispers, my name falling from her mouth like a forgotten prayer. “What do you want, Kit?”
Right.
“Stop going into the middle of crowds by yourself,” I demand. She opens her mouth, but I lift a finger. “Don’t deny it. I saw you in the bloody mosh pit. Are you daft?”
I lost her—for one awful second. The thought of watching her disappear into that chaos mid-song wrings my stomach.
“What were you thinking? You could’ve been crushed. Your precious camera could have seen an unfortunate end. You don’t go into a mosh pit unless you’re planning to mosh; that’s moshing 101.”
“Mosh,” Whitney parrots from the bed. I shoot her a scowl, and she lifts her hands, grinning. “What? I wanted to say it, too.”
“I’m not takin’ the piss,” I hiss, turning back to Zach. “If you’re planning to go onto the floor, you need a guard to escort you. That is non-negotiable.”
“I’m fine. See.” She does a little twirl, the red dress flaring around her thighs. My brain promptly melts. “Unscathed. And besides, if I’m walking around with your giant bodyguards it’s going to draw unwanted attention.”
“Me worrying about how long it’d take for someone to get to you if something went wrong is distracting, which will also draw unwanted attention.”
“Well, I’m sorry if my job distracts you from doing yours.
” She crosses her arms, the chain at her neck bending as the movement pushes her cleavage up.
“But that’s not my problem. Now, if you don’t mind—” The damned woman walks to the bar, grabs a small red clutch, and slings the dainty silver chain over her shoulder. “I’m going out.”
I scoff, going rigid. “Where?”
Though I know; the girls mentioned their post-show ritual, but I hadn’t realised the trio had become a quartet. I don’t like how she’s sneaking her way deeper into my life. But to be fair, it’s the girls who introduced her to us in the first place.
“That’s really none of your business,” she says, flicking her hair over her shoulder. Her perfume wafts up to me again, warm, sweet, and intoxicating. “Have a good night, Kit.”
She brushes past me, heels clicking against the carpet. Zach steps into the hallway, and Yensil straightens immediately. She gives him a little wave, dimples appearing, red lips curving, and eyes sparkling.
Endymion’s right. Beauty cannot be ignored. It’s mathematics; the Fibonacci sequence. Beauty is balance and chaos, the divine proportion that governs the universe. Because here I am, a bloody fucking rockstar, brought to my knees by a woman in a short red dress.
She’s the golden ratio incarnate; every angle of her face and body align in ways that defy logic. A beauty that isn’t simply visual, but gravitational, warping the space around her.
Euclid himself would be impressed.
I’m frozen in the doorway, her fragrance remaining in the air like a spell.
“All right?” Yensil glances at me, brow raised.
“Fine.” I lie, swallowing hard.
I step back into the room, gripping the frame to steady myself. The girls watch me with matching smirks. This was a fucking set-up, those deviant little wenches.
“Oh, you’re in trouble,” Whitney sings delightedly as she skips past.
“Shut it,” I mutter, but they only laugh while my heart pounds, knowing one undeniable truth.
I’m not the one with the power.
She is.