Chapter 2
LORETTA
Being alone in the same room with the richest man in the country was not something I had ever imagined would happen to me on a Tuesday evening.
I was acutely aware of his presence—he hadn’t moved. I could feel him there, standing close, likely watching me.
My nerves tightened under that silence.
My hands trembled despite themselves, still cuffed behind my back with the handcuffs Bruno had used on me.
My breathing slowed deliberately.
I tilted my head slightly toward where I sensed him standing, aligning myself as precisely as I could.
It wasn’t perfect. It never was.
But I had learned how to aim my attention—how to feel where someone stood by the way their presence pressed into the space around me.
“Thank you, Mr. Pérez,” I managed to say, despite the lingering burn in my mouth from Bruno’s earlier pressure of the scissors against my tongue.
“Bruno was going to cut off my tongue and silence me completely, all because I resisted his harassment at the company. He wanted me to beg him here, and then again in public tomorrow, but I refused.”
My voice wavered slightly. “If you had arrived even two seconds later, I think my tongue would have been on the floor... and I would have been bleeding out. I’m truly grateful.”
I poured it out, my voice unsteady.
A heavy, suffocating silence followed, and I couldn’t tell if I had spoken too much or if my words had angered him.
“Bruno will not trouble you again,” he said at last.
“I’ll also have your door repaired by morning,” he continued, his tone as composed as before. “You shouldn’t have to sleep with it hanging off its hinges.”
His words were unexpectedly considerate, standing in stark contrast to the rumors I had heard about him.
Coming from him, they carried a weight that made my chest tighten slightly.
“Thank you,” I said again, my voice softer now, my head dipping slightly.
I could hear the faint creak of the floorboards as he shifted his weight.
Unlike Bruno, who filled space loudly and carelessly...
Rafael occupied it with dangerous precision and quiet authority.
While Bruno’s presence repulsed me in every possible way, Rafael... Rafael felt entirely different.
I had never seen him in person—my blindness made that impossible—but even if I had sight, it seemed he was rarely seen at all.
The staff spoke of him in hushed, almost reverent tones, dreaming aloud about the rare occasions he would appear.
He had once shown himself on television, before the death of his late wife, but even that had become rare over time.
Now, even employees of his own company only saw him occasionally when he chose to appear.
A man so widely admired—particularly by the opposite gender—naturally made me assume he was undeniably attractive.
“Mr. Rafael,” I said, breaking the suffocating silence as politely as I could, though my voice betrayed none of the tension tightening inside me.
My hands remained bound behind my back, the metal pressing into my wrists with quiet insistence, a constant reminder of how vulnerable I was.
“I know you are still here,” I added. “I do not mean to be impolite, but is there anything further you require of me?”
The words lingered in the air between us.
He didn’t answer immediately—he moved instead, one slow, intentional step closer, then another, until the space between us began to vanish; my breath caught as his scent deepened around me.
Grounding in a way I didn’t expect.
It chased away the lingering stench of smoke, replacing it with something steadier.
Something that made it easier to breathe.
I hated that I noticed.
Then—
His touch found my wrists suddenly, still bound behind my back.
I heard the faint clink of metal and the subtle movement as he stepped in closer.
My shoulders stiffened instinctively as his presence pressed near my back, every nerve in me reacting at once.
But unlike Bruno, there was no violence in it—no force, no roughness.
Only a steady pause, as though he was giving me time to understand what he intended.
“Hold still,” he said quietly.
The words weren’t harsh but they weren’t a request either.
I stilled anyway.
My breathing slowed deliberately, my body locking in place as I felt his hands move near the cuffs.
The metal shifted.
A soft clink.
Then—
Click.
The pressure around my wrists released instantly.
Relief hit me so suddenly it almost made me dizzy.
I drew in a slow breath as my arms came forward, stiff and aching from the unnatural position.
My shoulders protested as I moved, a dull pain settling deep into the joints.
I rubbed my wrists gently, my fingertips brushing over the sore, indented skin where the metal had bitten in.
Warmth returned slowly.
“Thank you,” I whispered, quieter now.
I flexed my fingers, testing the movement, grounding myself in something physical again.
Behind me, he didn’t step away immediately.
I could still feel him there.
Close enough that the air between us felt thinner.
I lowered my hands into my lap, keeping them still even as awareness prickled along my spine.
Then I felt him straighten and shift away from me, and only then did my breathing begin to steady.
His footsteps crossed the room—slow, unhurried.
Each one deliberate, not leaving, but choosing his position.
A moment later, the couch gave a soft exhale as he sat, the cushions sinking under his weight.
He sat there so comfortably, as if he belonged in my space—like my small apartment wasn’t beneath him at all.
Why? I thought he would have left by now.
That thought unsettled me more than anything else.
Men like Rafael Pérez didn’t sit in places like this.
They didn’t linger in broken apartments with splintered doors and the lingering scent of cigarette smoke still clinging to the walls.
My fingers dug lightly into the fabric of my lap, forcing myself to stay still instead of fidgeting.
Many women at the office would lose their minds if they knew.
Rafael Pérez—the Rafael Pérez—sitting on my couch, speaking to me alone, without an audience, without pretense.
If word ever got out...
I could already hear it.
The whispers. The sharp glances. The quiet accusations dressed up as curiosity.
What did she do to get his attention?
The blind girl?
I pushed the thought aside.
It didn’t matter.
“I would like to understand,” Rafael began, his voice measured and thoughtful, as though settling into a subject worth examining.
“How do you manage entirely on your own?” he asked at last, his voice quieter now, touched with something that sounded dangerously close to genuine curiosity. “Do you have someone who comes by? Friends, perhaps? A relative? Anyone who assists you with... daily matters?”
I lowered my gaze instinctively, though my blind eyes could not truly meet his.
“No,” I answered softly. “There’s no one.”
The words felt heavier spoken aloud.
“My family is... elsewhere. And friends were never something I learned how to keep.”
A faint breath escaped me. “So I manage on my own.”
For a moment, he did not speak.
I could almost picture the look on his face without needing sight to confirm it—the faint disbelief, the subtle narrowing of aristocratic eyes accustomed to privilege and dependence being outsourced to servants and assistants.
To men like him, blindness was likely synonymous with helplessness.
When he finally spoke again, there was no trace of ridicule in his tone.
“I’ve heard reports about the new intern at my company,” he murmured. “Exceptionally efficient. Meticulous. Apparently half the department is terrified of being outperformed by you.” A pause. “I paid little attention to the gossip at the time.”
His voice lowered slightly.
“But now... I find it difficult not to.”
The compliment settled awkwardly between us.
“Despite your condition,” he continued carefully, choosing the words with more tact this time, “you function with a level of precision most people with perfect eyesight never achieve.” Another brief silence. “You must possess a rather extraordinary mind.”
I released a slow breath, forcing my expression into something composed and unreadable.
“I simply adapted,” I replied calmly. “When one sense is taken away, the others learn to compensate.”
My fingers rested lightly against my lap. “I trained myself to pay attention to details most people overlook. Footsteps. Breathing patterns. Changes in air pressure. The direction of sound.”
A faint smile touched my lips, restrained and elegant.
“The world does not become smaller because I cannot see it, Mr. Pérez. I merely learned how to navigate it differently.”
He said nothing immediately.
But for the first time since he entered my apartment, the oppressive weight of his presence shifted into something else entirely.
Respect.
So I continued.
“Touch. Hearing. Smell. Memory.” My fingers moved slightly as I spoke, grounding the words in something tangible. “They sharpen when you rely on them.”
I turned my face a fraction toward where he sat, aligning myself with the weight of his presence.
“Being blind isn’t the end of the world, sir,” I added calmly. “It’s just a different way of living.”
“Were you born this way?”
The question struck with disarming precision.
For one fractured second, the room tilted beneath me.
Memories surged forward uninvited—cold hospital corridors, shattered glass, my father’s voice, the suffocating darkness that had followed.
My fingers tightened subtly against my lap, nails biting crescents into my skin.
Control yourself.
A slow breath entered my lungs.
Then another.
But the silence had already stretched too long.
And I knew he noticed.
Men like him were trained to notice hesitation. Raised in worlds where weakness was currency and silence often revealed more than words ever could.
I forced my shoulders to remain relaxed despite the tension climbing my spine.
“I apologise if this sounds discourteous, sir,” I said softly, keeping my tone measured despite the tightness pressing against my chest, “but that question makes me... deeply uncomfortable.”