The office felt different now.
Quieter. Colder.
Sasha and I hadn't said a word to each other since that night. The air between us was thick,so full of tension it crackled every time we passed each other in the hallway. I caught her gaze once in the boardroom, and she looked away so fast you'd think I burned her with just a glance.
Maybe I did.
But it didn't stop me from wanting to do it again.
She was distant. Formal. As if we hadn't fallen apart in each other's arms just days ago. As if she hadn't whispered my name like a prayer while I lost my damn mind over her.
She laughed with her team now,an easy, empty laugh,and I hated it. Hated that she could act like nothing happened while I was coming undone from the inside out.My wife had noticed I was distracted. Adrian noticed too. Everyone was starting to feel the shift, the crack.And Sasha? She was burying it. But I knew she was unraveling too. I saw it in the way her smile dimmed when she thought no one was watching.
But I always was.
KIAN'S POV (FLASHBACK + PRESENT)
I can still feel her skin beneath my fingers.
Still remember how her lips tasted of wine and frustration.
That night… that damn night. I didn't plan it. I told myself I was just going to talk to her, to clear the air. Instead, I walked into her house with a storm inside me and left with an addiction I couldn't shake.
One bite of her was never enough.
And now?
Now I was starving.
I kept replaying it. Her lips parting in surprise when she tried to close the me out of the door,buy insted i pushed it open and closed it behind me giving her no chance of escaping me. Her voice sharp and wounded when she said, "Why are you here, Kian?"
Because I couldn't stay away.
Because seeing her with Lex and Adrian lit a fire in me I didn't know I was capable of.
Because I hated the thought of another man touching what I hadn't even claimed, but already felt was mine.
And because I was already drowning in her.
I hadn't followed her on purpose. Or so I told myself. Coincidence. Just checking in.
But truth be told,I'd been watching her for weeks. Ever since that night in the office when our tension turned into something we couldn't undo.
It wasn't about control anymore. Or lust. It was need. Madness.
The more I tried to forget her, the more she haunted me.
I started comparing.
Her voice versus my wife's. Her eyes versus the cold indifference I'd grown used to at home. Sasha saw me. Saw past the polished man I presented to the world. She touched the part of me I kept buried,restless, raw, reckless.And when she surrendered to me that night… I fell.Now, in the silence that followed, I was breaking.
She wore a navy-blue dress today. Simple, work-appropriate, and somehow still a weapon aimed at my resolve.
I watched her from the glass wall of my office. She looked up once and caught me staring. For a second, she didn't look away.
My chest tightened.
But then she blinked, turned, and walked away.
Another wound.
And yet, I'd take every one of them if it meant I got to taste her again.
My phone buzzed. A message from my wife.
"Dinner with the partners tonight. Don't be late."
I stared at it, unmoving. Guilt nipped at my chest, but it wasn't sharp enough to cut through the ache Alani had left behind.
The memory of her voice echoed in my head:
"You're married, Kian. This,whatever this is,can only destroy."
Maybe. But I was already broken.
And somehow, I didn't regret it.
What I regretted… was the silence. The space between us now.
The way she flinched when I got too close. The way she folded into herself like we were strangers again.
No.
We could never be strangers again.
I had crossed the line. Stepped into the fire.
And now I was burning alive with no intention of putting it out.