Layla's POV
The message shook me so hard the phone felt heavier in my hand. Whatever color remained in my face drained instantly. Michael saw everything. He didn't need to read the text; my reaction told him more than any words could.
His voice dropped, low and edged with something sharp. "Someone I should be worried about?"
It wasn't anger, nor was it calm. It was jealousy wrapped in control, a quiet warning laced with something possessive.
Before I could form a reply, he took the phone from my hand, pressed the screen off with a single tap, and placed it on the side table like he was removing a threat.
"No," I whispered. "Just… someone."
The fear in my voice betrayed me. I tried to hide it. Failed. Michael didn't question it. He didn't scold. He didn't flinch.
He lifted me before my feet could touch the floor, carrying me to the bathroom with a tenderness that clashed with the coldness brewing in his eyes. The room filled with warm steam as he turned on the water and placed me gently in the bathtub.
The warmth spread through me, soothing the tension trembling beneath my skin. His hand followed, moving over me with slow, deliberate care; cleaning me, steadying me, grounding me.
He didn't speak.
He left me in the water and showered beside me, silent under the spray. When he returned, he wrapped me in a towel, drying me with the same patience he'd shown while washing me.
Then he handed me an oversized T-shirt that smelled unmistakably like him; fresh, dark, masculine. He lifted me again and took me back to the bed with a quiet protectiveness that melted every defense I tried to keep up.
But the silence in him didn't disappear. It thickened.
That was when I saw it clearly, the side Atlanta whispered about. The version of him the city feared. The one who ruled an empire with a mind like ice and walls no one touched.
Cold. Distant. Controlled.
He wasn't cruel. He wasn't unkind. But emotion drained from him piece by piece until he felt unreachable, like he'd shut a door inside himself.
Still, he cared for me.
He went to the kitchen and returned with a bowl of parfait, setting it beside me like it was a ritual he didn't want to break. Then he slid into bed behind me, one arm circling my waist. His fingers brushed my hip, steady and reassuring.
He held me against his chest, breathing slow and even, like he was forcing himself to stay calm for my sake. Forehead kisses followed; soft, lingering, speaking all the things he refused to voice out loud.
My fear quieted under those touches. My thoughts softened. Eventually, exhaustion pulled me under. The last thing I felt was his warmth pressed against my back and the weight of his arm guarding me like a shield.
When morning came, clarity returned with a vengeance. I woke in Michael's white, oversized T-shirt; no panties, bare legs tangled in sheets that smelled cleaner than any five-star hotel. The room was immaculate, every detail precisely arranged: crisp white bedding, sleek black accents, soft morning light filtering through floor-to-ceiling windows. It was the kind of luxury that didn't need to flaunt itself. Quiet, elegant, effortless.
But reality didn't match the calm around me.
The alcohol was gone from my system. Every mistake, every decision, slammed back into place with brutal force. The FBI's message hit me like a punch to the chest. But another truth struck harder: Michael Luke Wade.
The man I thought I'd never see again.
The man who hurt me ten years ago.
The boy I lost my innocence with ten years ago.
He vanished afterward. No calls. No explanations. Not a single trace. Six years of silence carved into me like a wound I learned to live with.
Then, four years ago, news spread like wildfire: his father was dead. Michael returned to Atlanta and took the empire for himself. What rose from that grief wasn't the boy I once knew.
It was him, Michael Wade.
Atlanta worshipped him. Feared him. Obeyed him.
Ruthless. Respected. Untouchable.
Young, powerful, devastatingly wealthy.
His face lived on magazine covers. His name lived in business headlines. And in every photo, every interview, every public appearance, he never smiled. Not once. He was the city's most desired, most whispered-about bachelor, the man no one dared cross.
And I was sitting in his clothes.
In his bed.
Bare beneath his shirt.
Like I belonged here.
Shame crawled up my spine.
I stayed in the corner of the bed, the exact spot where he left me, frozen between panic and disbelief. I didn't want anything to do with him. I'd spent years hiding from the ghost of who he was.
Yet here I was.
Wearing him. Smelling like him. Marked by him in ways I couldn't deny. As the thoughts spiraled, an uneasy stillness settled over me. Something was wrong.
He wasn't in the room.
I slipped out of bed and padded across the cool floors, the oversized shirt brushing my thighs. The penthouse was spotless, surfaces gleaming, furniture perfectly arranged, the city stretching beyond the glass like a living map.
Sunlight washed through every window, illuminating the silence.
No footsteps.
No movement.
No sign of him.
Just the quiet, the comfort, the eerie order of a place where nothing was ever out of place.
And then, something caught my eye.