Jadon
He had been caught.
The words, whispered in a low, fierce tone, pierced the fragrant air of the hall.
Jadon's heart, heavy and dormant, slammed against his ribs. His watch was gone. His team was a hundred yards away. His billions, his power, his whole "Asher" setup—none of it mattered now.
He was just a man in a hoodie, ten yards from a woman who looked at him with a mix of raw fear and justifiable anger.
His first urge, shaped by a lifetime of hiding, was to run. To turn, walk away, and disappear. It was the Astra move. It was the "Asher" move.
But he'd already done that. He had done it at the restaurant, and now he realized it had only made him seem more sinister. More... guilty.
He saw her hand, the one not in her pocket, clench into a fist. She was scared, but she was also... furious. He had terrified her. That awareness cut through his own panic.
He had to say something.
He pulled his hands from his pockets slowly, raising them in a universal gesture of surrender. "No," he said.
His voice was a low, rough sound, strange even to him. He hadn't talked to anyone face-to-face in days, well aside from Kael.
"No?" Talia's fear was quickly overshadowed by her anger. She stepped toward him, her chin raised. "That's it? Just 'no'? You were in the market the other day. That was you... last night. At Astra."
She had seen him. She had put the pieces together. The ghost and the king.
"How... how did you... this isn't a coincidence," she accused, her voice shaking. "Are you a... a private investigator? Did... did Élan hire you? Did The Asher Group...?"
She was offering him an escape. A corporate, sterile excuse.
He couldn't accept it. He had to create the lie. The true lie. The one from their outline. The "Jadon" from Manchester.
"No," he said again, his voice raw. He pulled off his cap and crushed it in his hand. He let her see his face, his eyes. He let her see the man from the alcove. "I'm... I'm not... following you."
"Then what are you doing?" she demanded.
He looked away from her, at the sacks of spices next to them. He gestured weakly. "This. The... the same thing you are."
Talia's face, which had been set in a mask of hard-won anger, crumpled. "What... what do you mean?"
"The spices," he said, meeting her gaze. He let her see it. The weariness. The sadness. The "haunted" look she had recognized from the start. "I... I'm in the industry. Culinary logistics. Sourcing."
At least this was the truth.
Talia just stared at him, her mind visibly trying to process this strange new information. "You're... a... spice merchant?"
"Something like that," he said with a hint of a self-deprecating smile. "I... I'm on leave. From my... my job. In London."
"London?" she whispered, her eyes widening.
"Yeah. I... I come here," he said, gesturing to the hall, "to... to get away. To... to remember what's real. Just like you."
He watched her process this. He saw her connect the dots. A culinary professional. In the market at 5 AM. At Astra—the city's top culinary destination—at 8 PM. It made sense. It was a believable, non-creepy explanation.
Her shoulders, which had been tense, softened. Her anger didn't disappear, but it dulled. It turned into deep confusion.
"So..." she said, her voice small. "The other day. And last night. You... you were staring at me."
He couldn't lie. Not about this. "Yes."
"Why?"
He had to be careful. He needed to give her part of the truth. "I... I saw you. In the market. The other day. The way you... you handled the cumin. I... I knew you were a professional. And then... to see you at Astra..." He let his voice trail off.
Talia blushed, her gaze dropping. "I... I know. I... I didn't exactly... belong." She gestured to her jeans. "This is... this is more my style."
Jadon took a half-step closer, his heart racing. "You were," he said, his voice filled with a truth that hurt, "the only real thing in that entire room."
Talia's head snapped up.
Her amber eyes, once full of fear and anger, were now wide, vulnerable, and utterly open. With one honest sentence, he had disarmed her.
The silence between them was no longer confrontational. It was... an invitation.
She looked at him, this impossible, sad-eyed, beautiful man. The king and the ghost. And he was, it seemed, just... a guy. Like her. A guy who loved spices. A guy who was... hiding.
A slow, wry, charming smile appeared on her lips. She shook her head, as if at the absurdity of it all.
"We have to stop meeting like this," she said, her voice dry.
Jadon's mind stalled. It sounded like a line from a bad film. And yet, on her, it was the wittiest thing he'd ever heard. A small, strangled, involuntary sound—half-laugh, half-groan—escaped his throat.
And Talia... she smiled. A real, genuine Talia smile.
She held out her hand. It was small, clean, and unadorned—the same hand he had seen in the cumin.
"Hi," she said, her voice now clear. "I'm Talia."
Jadon stared at her hand as if it were a grenade.
This was it. The moment of contact. The moment the lie became real.
He was the man who had ended her contract. He was the man who had her under constant surveillance. He was the jerk from the Rolls-Royce.
And right now, he was more terrified of this 5'5" woman than he had ever been of his family, his board of directors, or the global media.
Slowly, almost like in a trance, he reached out and took her hand.
It was warm. It was real. A jolt, sharp and undeniable, shot up his arm, settling in his chest.
"Jadon," he said. The name rumbled from his throat.
The lie was told. The pact was sealed.