The city looked different at night from Elias's penthouse. Quieter. Too far above the noise to feel real. The rain had stopped, leaving the glass streaked like veins of light.
Mara stood by the window again, barefoot this time. She hadn't planned to be here. She'd come to drop off a folder, nothing more. That was what she told herself as she waited for him to return from a call that had gone on too long.
She could hear him in the next room—low voice, all control. Always control.
When he finally stepped back into view, phone abandoned, his jacket was gone. The sleeves were rolled, his tie loose. The look in his eyes was the same one from the terrace that night: unspoken, steady, dangerous.
"You stayed," he said.
"I shouldn't have."
"Then why did you?"
She didn't have an answer that didn't sound like confession.
He crossed the room, the air thickening between them. When he stopped, his reflection met hers in the window, both of them staring at the ghosts of people they were trying not to be.
"You can still walk out," he said quietly.
She turned to him. "Do you want me to?"
He didn't reply. He didn't need to. The silence said everything.
Elias lifted a hand, slow enough to give her time to flinch away. She didn't. His fingers brushed the line of her throat, then her jaw, tracing words he'd never speak. The touch wasn't possession—it was hesitation. Reverence.
Mara's breath trembled. Her heart was a drum in the quiet. She reached up, almost without thinking, and caught his wrist. Her thumb pressed against the pulse there—steady, alive, human.
"This can't go anywhere," she whispered.
"I know."
"Then why—"
"Because I can't stop thinking about you."
The words cracked something open. The distance closed in an instant.
He leaned in until her breath caught against his. Close enough for warmth to blur reason. His hand slipped to the small of her back, holding her as if the world might pull her away.
She wanted to forget the rules, the danger, everything. She wanted to fall.
But when his forehead rested against hers, he stopped. Neither of them moved.
The city glowed around them, quiet and endless. Her tears came first—small, frustrated, human.
Elias exhaled against her skin. "If I start, I won't stop."
"I know," she said. "That's why you can't."
He drew back just enough to meet her eyes. The restraint there was almost painful. Then he stepped away, slow, deliberate, like walking through fire.
Mara turned back to the window, watching his reflection fade behind her.
It should have felt like control. It felt like loss.