The days after breakfast blurred into one long stretch of restraint. Meetings. Calls. Signatures. Numbers that made sense on paper but refused to quiet his mind.
Andrew sat through boardrooms like a ghost, nodding at the right moments, signing contracts without rereading them, responding to questions on instinct alone. His assistants noticed. His executives did too.
The pauses between his answers grew longer. His jaw stayed clenched more often than not. His eyes, dark and piercing, seemed to look past everyone in the room, seeing a reality no one else could touch.
Because no matter how busy the days became, his thoughts kept circling the same word.
Friday.
He hated how much weight it carried now. Hated that a single day had begun to feel like a threat. He told himself it was nothing. Just a date. Just lunch. Just a man who didn't matter. And yet… every time he checked the calendar, there it was. Closer. Louder. Inevitable.
By Wednesday, his patience was thinning.
By Thursday, his sleep was gone. By Friday morning, he could feel it pressing against his chest, like a hand holding him down, reminding him that he had no control over this, no power over how she chose to move in the world.
The city moved as it always did. Traffic crawled. Emails flooded in. Deadlines demanded attention. But inside Andrew, time dragged its feet, each hour stretching tighter than the last. He left his apartment later than usual, almost as if staying longer at the office would make the day disappear, give him a reprieve from the truth.
By the time evening crept in, his chest felt heavy, like it was stuffed with lead. Work ended late. Always late. He lingered longer than necessary, staring out at the city through the panoramic windows of his office, letting the lights blur into streaks of gold and white. Even the hum of the air conditioning couldn't drown out the image of her.
Driving home, he didn't turn on the radio. Didn't take a call. Just the quiet engine and the relentless thoughts spinning in his mind. Her laugh. Her dimples. Her soft curls falling just the way he liked them. The thought of her lips brushing against Luke's words, smiling for him, laughing for him, made his jaw tighten with unreasoning heat.
He stepped into his penthouse. The silence felt heavier than usual. Colder. The apartment smelled faintly of his own cologne and old paper from the briefcases he left lying around, but the warmth that should have filled it wasn't there. Not without her.
He loosened his tie, tossed his jacket aside, and poured a glass of whiskey that he barely tasted. The amber liquid caught the light and flickered like fire. He gripped the glass, rolling it slowly in his hand, but the burn of the alcohol did nothing to touch the fire in his chest.
And then, as if on cue, his thoughts drifted.
Bella.
Right now.
Was she standing in front of her mirror, applying a soft brush of powder, pulling out a silky blouse, and draping it over her shoulders with casual elegance? Was she deciding between effortless and intentional, knowing full well that her choice would leave the world at her feet no matter what?
He pictured her fingers brushing against fabric, her lips pressing together in concentration. Her soft, infuriating smile that came so easily to strangers.
And Luke.
Andrew's hand tightened around the glass. He hated that he knew the man's name. Hated that it lodged itself in his head without permission. Hated that Bella had smiled at him, had given him that warmth that he craved. Luke. A stranger in Andrew's carefully controlled world. A man who didn't belong.
Who didn't deserve even a fraction of what Bella offered freely.
He told himself he had no right. No claim. No permission to feel this way. And yet, the ache in his chest ignored logic.
He crossed the living room slowly, letting his steps fall with precise control, stopping near the windows that overlooked the city skyline. The glass reflected him, sharp and composed. He exhaled slowly, whiskey untouched, the bottle still half full beside the laptop.
This was the cost of wanting more than he was allowed. The cost of staying when he should have walked away. The cost of sharing moments that were meaningless to her but lethal to him. The cost of pretending he could handle casual, when his heart had already crossed the line, leapt past every boundary, and refused to return.
Friday had come.
And no matter how much he wished otherwise, he couldn't escape it.
His fingers hovered over his phone.
He clicked on Bella's Instagram story. A boomerang of her, red nails brushing soft curls over her shoulder, a pearl drop necklace resting elegantly against her skin. She smiled. Dimples flashing. "Casual Friday dinner vibes," she captioned. He didn't need to ask. He knew. Luke.
Sitting across from her tonight, he would be invisible. A man in the shadows of her attention, while Luke basked in the sunlight of her laughter.
He tossed the phone aside. The chest-tightening, stomach-churning sensation wasn't just jealousy. It was something far deeper. Possessive. Dark. Desperate. It wasn't about a single meal or a single dinner. It was about her, entirely, with someone else.
After he had made her breakfast. After he had kissed her neck in the morning, lingering, like he couldn't stop. After she had whispered, "If it stops being easy, we stop." But it had never been easy for him. Never.
And now, Luke, a soft-voiced, smooth-talking golden boy, was entering a world that should have been his. But wasn't. Not yet.
Andrew's jaw clenched. He stood, pacing the room, hand rubbing the rigid line of his jaw. Should he call her? Tell her to come over? Tell her to leave Luke? Tell her… anything?
No. He didn't.
Because she would laugh. A low, sweet, mocking laugh, and say, "Andrew… we agreed."
And the truth? He had never agreed.
Not to this. Not to this torment. Not to this aching, stretching, unrelenting obsession. He had agreed only to the illusion. The thrill. The idea of control. But the reality was far crueler. And now… it was too late to stop feeling it.
He poured the whiskey he had ignored into a second glass. Took a slow sip. Bitter, burning. Like the thoughts of her.
He walked toward the balcony. The city lights were sharp now, scattered below, glimmering like stars. His empire stretched in every direction, glass and steel reflecting power and dominance. Yet none of it mattered tonight. Nothing mattered except her. Bella.
He pressed a hand against the railing, gaze fixed downward. Somewhere out there, she would choose. She would smile. She would laugh. She would give pieces of herself freely. And he could not stop it. Not with wealth, not with influence, not with a single gesture he could make.
A storm raged inside him. Possessiveness, desire, jealousy, and longing fused into a dark, heavy weight. He felt the edges of control slipping, just slightly, imperceptibly, but enough to burn.
Andrew Monsiago, the untouchable, the unshakable, the master of empires… had no idea how to master her.
And that… was the cruelest truth of all.