POV: Alexandra Vaughn
Rain slicked the streets of London like glass when I stepped out of the car. The city shimmered, restless and alive, but I felt oddly still; as if everything inside me had narrowed to a single thought, a single name, Damian Cross.
The concierge recognized me immediately and offered a polite nod before leading me to the private elevator. I didn't know why I'd agreed to come, he'd only said we need to talk after our last impossible conversation at the charity board meeting. Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe it was masochism.
The elevator doors opened into silence. His penthouse was a world of polished steel and soft shadows, the skyline unfurling behind floor-to-ceiling glass. Damian stood near the window, jacket off, sleeves rolled to his elbows, a drink in his hand.
"Alexandra," he said, without turning. "You came."
"I shouldn't have," I replied, my voice steadier than my pulse.
He turned then, the city lights catching the sharp line of his jaw. "No. You shouldn't have. But you did."
I set my bag on the counter. "You said you wanted to talk."
"I did." He walked closer, each step measured, deliberate. "But every time I try to think of what to say to you, it comes out wrong."
The air between us was heavy. His apartment smelled faintly of cedar and rain. I could hear the faint tick of the clock on the wall and the uneven rhythm of my own breathing.
"I'm marrying your best friend," he said softly. "And you look at me like that."
My throat tightened. "Like what?"
"Like you're daring me to forget it."
I wanted to laugh, to deflect, to hide behind wit like I always did—but I couldn't. My voice came out low. "And you look at me like you already have."
He exhaled, setting his glass aside. "This is a mistake."
"Then stop."
He didn't move. Neither did I. The space between us became a kind of gravity, invisible but absolute. I'd spent my entire life controlling rooms, commanding silence, bending chaos into logic, but I couldn't command this.
"Why did you ask me here, Damian?" I whispered.
His eyes searched mine, and something inside him flickered: fear, want, guilt, all tangled together. "Because you make it impossible to breathe around you. Because every time I try to be the man she deserves, I remember the one thing I can't have."
I took a step back. He followed. My hand brushed the edge of the counter for balance.
"Don't," I said, though my voice betrayed me.
He stopped inches away. "You think I planned this?"
"No one plans a disaster," I said. "They just don't walk away from the fire fast enough."
We stood there, suspended in that dangerous quiet where words were almost physical; where every breath felt like a confession. Outside, thunder rolled over the city, distant but growing closer.
"Alexandra," he murmured, my name suddenly softer, almost reverent.
And I realized what scared me most wasn't that I wanted him. It was that a part of me already belonged to him, before either of us had said a word.
I forced myself to break the silence. "This has to stop. Whatever this is, this thing between us, it can't exist."
He nodded slowly, but his eyes didn't agree. "You're right," he said. "It shouldn't. And yet…"
He reached past me for the decanter on the counter, his arm brushing mine. The contact was barely there, but it was enough to send a pulse through me that I couldn't disguise.
I moved away, trying to reclaim distance. "Lydia doesn't deserve.."
"No," he interrupted quietly. "She doesn't. Which is why I keep pretending that I don't think of you when she talks about forever."
The words hit harder than I expected.
"Damian," I said, my voice almost breaking. "Please."
He turned toward me again, and there was something unguarded in his expression now, something I'd never seen in him before. Not arrogance, not power. Just raw, aching truth.
"Do you ever wish you could meet someone else entirely?" he asked. "Someone you could want without consequence?"
"Every day," I said.
The room went still again. We were no longer speaking like two rational people but like something older, more dangerous, like magnets that had been pretending to be stone.
"I can't be what you need," I said finally. "And you can't be what I want."
He gave a small, hollow smile. "Then we're even."
I tried to step past him. He caught my wrist; not roughly, just enough to stop me. My breath caught. His touch was warm, steady, and terrifyingly gentle.
"Tell me you don't feel it," he said.
I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. Because I did feel it. Every pulse of it. Every echo of something I shouldn't want but did.
I met his eyes, and for a heartbeat, I forgot everything: the cases, the rules, Lydia. The world outside that glass wall didn't exist. There was only him, and the way he looked at me like I was both his undoing and his salvation.
"Let me go," I whispered.
He did. Immediately. The air rushed back between us, thick and cold.
Without another word, I grabbed my bag and walked toward the door. I didn't trust myself to look back.
But just as my hand touched the handle, he said quietly, "If you walk out now, everything changes."
I froze.
"What do you mean?"
He hesitated, then said, "You should ask Lydia where she was last Friday night."
My heart stopped.
When I turned to face him, he wasn't looking at me; he was staring at the skyline, expression unreadable.
The storm outside broke at last, rain hammering against the glass as if to drown out the silence between us.
I whispered, "What did you just say?"
He didn't answer.
And for the first time, I felt the ground shift beneath the story I thought I knew.