Elena's POV
You ever wake up the morning after something that changed everything — but you can't quite explain how it changed?
That's how it felt after the event.
Adrian didn't say another word to me that night after… what happened.
Those three quiet, possessive words — you're mine, Elena — still echoed in my head, looping in a voice I couldn't forget even if I tried.
He drove me home in silence. The kind of silence that wasn't empty — it was thick, alive, full of all the things neither of us knew how to say.
I barely slept.
And when I walked into the office the next morning, my heart was racing like I was about to walk into something dangerous.
Maybe I was.
Because Adrian Knight — the man known for his impossible standards and cold professionalism — wasn't quite the same.
At least, not with me.
He greeted me when I entered his office — quietly, but his tone was softer than usual. His eyes, usually sharp and assessing, lingered instead. Like he was checking if I'd slept, if I'd eaten, if I was… okay.
I wasn't. But I smiled anyway.
We went about our day as if nothing had happened, but everything had.
The rhythm between us had shifted — subtly, but irreversibly.
When he spoke to others, he was the same Adrian everyone knew: precise, direct, impossible to please.
But when he turned to me, something changed.
His voice lowered. His eyes softened.
And the space between us — that invisible distance we always kept — began to blur.
He started doing small things he never did before.
Like placing his hand at the small of my back when we entered a room.
Like pulling out the chair beside him instead of across from him.
Like handing me a coffee in the morning — always exactly the way I liked it — without saying a word.
Little things.
But when they came from him, they weren't little at all.
At first, I tried to tell myself I was imagining it. That he was just being polite.
But then came the elevator moment.
We were heading to a meeting downtown — just the two of us. I pressed the button, and the doors closed, sealing us inside a quiet metal box filled with air that suddenly felt too thin.
He stood close. Too close. The scent of his cologne — clean, dark, familiar — made my pulse race.
I could feel his gaze on me before I looked up.
"You didn't eat breakfast again," he said, not as a question. Just a quiet observation.
I blinked, caught off guard. "I wasn't hungry."
He turned his head slightly, his jaw tightening. "You should be taking care of yourself better."
"I'm fine, Mr. Knight—"
"Elena."
Just my name.
But the way he said it… soft, low, careful. It felt like a touch.
The elevator dinged open, and he stepped out first, his hand instinctively reaching back for mine — guiding me through the lobby like it was the most natural thing in the world.
And even when he let go, I could still feel it.
That's the thing about him.
He never says much. But everything he does says too much.
Later that day, I caught him watching me again — when I was talking to another employee, laughing about something small. His expression was unreadable, but there was something in his eyes… something I'd seen the night of the event.
Possessive.
Protective.
Almost tender.
When our eyes met, he didn't look away. Not this time.
He just smiled — barely, the smallest curve of his lips — but it was enough to steal the air from my lungs.
And in that moment, I realized something.
He wasn't fighting it anymore.
And neither was I.
Because this — whatever it was between us — wasn't just attraction.
It was chaos.
Gentle, quiet, terrifying chaos.
The kind that makes your pulse skip when he's near.
The kind that makes you forget where your boundaries used to be.
And the strangest part?
I didn't want it to stop.