Chapter 4 What He Knew Before You

You don't speak.

You can't.

Your throat is thick with everything you don't understand-his tattoo, your name inked into his skin, the knowledge that he's been building a world around you in secret while you moved through your life unaware.

The silence between you crackles. Adrian doesn't touch you again. He doesn't have to. He's already marked you without laying a finger. The weight of his presence behind you is enough to fold your spine inward. But you stay sitting. Still. Waiting.

"You remember nothing," he says. Not a question. A quiet observation.

And it's true. You don't. Not clearly. Madrid had been a blur of colors and music and loneliness. You remember painting in the park. You remember wandering the museum halls at night. You remember dropping your sketchbook in front of the cathedral-but not him. Not Adrian Cavalli.

Not the man whose voice is now crawling under your skin like it knows the map of your body better than you do.

"I remember... something," you admit, staring at your own reflection like she might help you explain it. "A man watching me. Dark coat. Cold eyes."

A flicker of approval passes through his face. Barely there. But it's enough.

"You weren't ready for me then," he says again. "You were still trying to outrun your past."

You flinch, and his fingers twitch above your skin like he wants to touch you, to apologize, or to remind you that he's always seen more than you offered. Maybe both. Maybe neither.

But he doesn't touch you. Not yet.

"You keep acting like I belong to you," you whisper. "Like this was inevitable."

"It was."

Your jaw tightens. You look down at your hands, folded in your lap. They don't feel like yours anymore. Nothing does.

"I didn't ask for any of this."

He smiles, but it's not cruel. It's quiet. Patient.

"No," he agrees. "But you signed for it."

You spin to face him now, no longer able to stare into the ghost of yourself in the mirror.

"And if I walked away?"

"You won't."

"You think I'm that easy to predict?"

"I think," he says slowly, "you've been waiting to be seen for so long, you'd rather bleed for it than walk away now."

Your mouth opens. Closes. You hate him for being right. Hate yourself more for the way your body heats at the sound of that voice wrapped around your name like a secret promise.

"You want the truth?" he says, stepping closer.

You nod.

He lifts your chin with one finger-not rough, not sweet. Just certain.

"Then don't look away."

You don't breathe for a moment. The room doesn't let you. There's something suffocating about silence when it carries the weight of someone else's obsession. And Adrian's obsession, you're starting to realize, is deliberate-built brick by brick in the dark, with your name at its foundation.

He stands behind you, still. Just still. Like he's always belonged there. Like the air shifted around him to make room for something unmovable.

Your eyes drop from the mirror to your lap, but that doesn't help. The reflection burns behind your eyelids. The version of you sitting here, quiet and trembling, doesn't match the version you've spent years building. You don't recognize this girl. And you don't hate her, either.

He steps closer. You feel it first in the change of temperature, the subtle shift of shadow, and then the softest whisper of heat as his fingertips ghost the bare skin of your neck-not quite touching. Almost. Almost always.

You clench the edge of the vanity seat, breath held so tight it hurts.

He doesn't speak. Just breathes. Just exists too near.

Then, softly-so softly it should have been missed-he says, "I could kiss you now."

Your whole body goes still.

"I could," he repeats, "tilt your head back and watch your lips part, press my mouth to yours until you forget why you ever ran."

But he doesn't.

"You want me to."

You do. God, you do.

But instead of giving in, he leans down. Just enough for his lips to brush the space below your ear. Not your skin. The air just above it. The heat of his breath trails down your spine like a dare, pooling low, making you ache.

"You want to know the worst part?" he murmurs. "You've wanted me from the moment you sat across that table. You wanted to know what it would feel like to unravel."

Your throat tightens.

"But I'm not going to give you that," he whispers, and there's a smile in it. A cruel, beautiful smile wrapped in control. "Not yet."

You exhale like you've been drowning. And maybe you have. Drowning in him, in this room, in this weight.

He steps back before you can respond, before you can even decide if you want to. And somehow, the emptiness he leaves behind makes it worse.

"Get up," he says. Calm. Commanding.

You do. Slowly. Every nerve on fire.

He gestures to the walk-in closet on the far side of the room. "Inside. Left wall. There's a drawer with your name on it."

You pause. "You-what?"

"I told you. I've been preparing. Go on."

Your feet carry you forward before your mind catches up. The closet is massive. Cold marble beneath your feet. Soft lighting. Everything in shades of black, grey, blood-red. And on the left, as promised, a tall armoire with drawers.

One of them is labeled. Selena.

You open it.

Inside: a silk ribbon. Dark, nearly black, but with a sheen of crimson when it catches the light. And beside it, a small envelope. Your name again. In his handwriting.

You pick it up.

"You will wear this in your hair tomorrow. Nothing else. Wait for further instruction."

Your heartbeat stutters. The note smells like him. Expensive cologne and ink and something darker.

You swallow. The heat returns, curling low again, but you close the drawer quietly. You press the note to your palm and walk back out.

He's already gone.

Of course he is.

Adrian Cavalli doesn't need to linger when he's already taken the air with him.

You find him downstairs. Not because he told you where he'd be, but because some part of you already knows. You follow the soft hum of jazz drifting through the air, low and golden like candlelight. It leads you past marble columns, along velvet-lined walls, into a sunken lounge that belongs in a black-and-white film. Adrian stands by the bar, his sleeves still rolled up, fingers wrapped around a glass of something dark and neat.

He doesn't turn when you enter.

But you feel his awareness shift. A pause in his breath. The faint tilt of his head.

You hover at the threshold, uncertain. His silence dares you to close the distance, and like everything else with him, it isn't a request. It's a test.

So you walk.

The click of your heels is the only sound that follows until you're within arm's reach.

Then: "Did you find it?"

You nod once. "The ribbon."

"Good." He sets the glass down. "Put it on."

You blink. "Now?"

He finally turns to face you, and for the second time that night, the air between you compresses into something unbearable. "Now."

You reach for it slowly, your hands trembling even though you tell them not to. The silk slips through your fingers, softer than breath, dangerous like a promise. You lift it to your head, fumble with the knot.

He watches.

Wordlessly.

Until your fingers miss the tie for the third time and he moves toward you-one step, then another. You still.

He brushes your hands away without asking.

"I'll do it," he says.

Your breath catches as his fingers thread through your hair, surprisingly gentle. He gathers it into a loose twist, ties the ribbon at the base of your neck. His hands are steady. Practiced. He takes his time, as if the act itself is more intimate than anything else he could do to you.

And somehow-it is.

"There," he murmurs when he finishes. "That's better."

You glance at him. "Why all this?"

His smile doesn't reach his eyes. "You'll see."

He walks past you then, picks up a remote, and dims the lights until only the fireplace casts flickering gold across the room. He gestures toward a single high-backed chair facing the flames.

"Sit."

You hesitate. "You're not going to-"

"I'm not going to touch you," he says, reading your mind. "Not unless you ask me to."

Your face burns. You hate how easily he finds the truths you haven't admitted even to yourself.

"But I will watch you," he adds. "Until you learn how to be looked at."

Your pulse thrums in your ears. "You said this wasn't about punishment."

"It isn't." He pours himself another drink. "It's about patience."

You stare at the chair, then at him.

"Don't make me repeat myself, Selena."

You sit.

Slowly. Warily.

And then-you wait.

His gaze burns into you from the other side of the room. He doesn't say anything else. Doesn't move. Just sits and drinks and watches. You shift under the weight of it, crossing and uncrossing your legs, trying to breathe normally. You've never felt more dressed and more exposed at the same time.

Eventually, he speaks.

"Tell me something true."

You blink. "What?"

"One thing. About yourself. Something no one else knows."

You hesitate. Then: "I wanted to disappear."

He says nothing.

You swallow. "Before all this. Before you. I was tired of being looked at without being seen."

And in the silence that follows, something cracks open.

Not loud. Not all at once. Just a slow splintering across your ribs. Because he doesn't rush to fill the quiet. He lets it settle, lets it breathe.

"I saw you," he says finally. "That day in the gallery. You thought no one did."

You nod. And for the first time tonight, you almost believe him.

The firelight dances along the hem of your dress as you sit stiffly in the high-backed chair, hands clenched in your lap. You should feel ridiculous. The ribbon, the silence, the way he watches you like he's unraveling something only he understands. But you don't feel ridiculous.

You feel seen. Which is worse.

Adrian hasn't moved. He lounges on the velvet chaise like it was carved for him, glass balanced between two fingers, head tilted slightly as he studies you. Like you're not a girl in his house but a painting-one he's been waiting years to finish.

"Again," he says. "Tell me something true."

You flinch. "I just did."

"That was minutes ago. I want another."

You frown, the words snagging in your throat. It feels like he's peeling you layer by layer. But it also feels like you're letting him.

"I never wanted to be owned," you say eventually. "I think I just wanted someone to try."

Adrian's brow lifts slightly, not in judgment but something quieter. Understanding, maybe.

"That," he says, voice low, "is the first honest thing you've said since you walked into my office."

Your stomach knots.

He sets his glass down and rises, and suddenly every molecule in the room feels like it's made of static. He doesn't come toward you. Not yet. He circles. Slow. Unhurried. Like he's measuring the perimeter of your control.

"I don't own you," he says as he passes behind you. "Not yet."

Your breath hitches.

"But I do have the right to...refine you. Break the pieces that were never meant to fit. Smooth the edges no one else bothered to touch."

He stops beside you now. One hand drags slowly across the back of your chair.

"I'm not cruel, Selena," he says. "I won't touch you until you beg me to."

Your thighs press together involuntarily.

"But I will teach you what it means to be wanted-until the absence of me hurts more than anything you've known."

You swallow hard. You want to speak. To push back. But the words betray you. He sees the way your breath stutters, the way your body leans forward without permission.

"You're afraid," he murmurs. "And that's good."

He leans down, mouth close to your ear again.

"Fear is just a warning before surrender."

He straightens, moves in front of you now, and offers a hand.

"Come."

You hesitate.

"I'm not going to bite," he says, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "Yet."

You place your hand in his.

His fingers curl slowly around yours, warm and firm and possessive. And then he leads you-not to the bedroom, not to the dark places your mind races toward-but to a single, locked door at the end of the corridor. He retrieves a key from his pocket and slips it into the lock.

The door opens on a room washed in soft light, sterile and strange. Books line the walls. A drafting table sits by the window, covered in sketches.

You freeze.

Because they're of you.

Every angle. Every expression. Some from memory, some you don't even recognize. A lifetime of quiet obsession rendered in graphite and ink. Your hand slips from his as you move forward on your own, reaching for the nearest page.

"She didn't know," Adrian says behind you.

You turn.

"My mother," he clarifies. "She thought they were studies. Figures. Not...you."

A long pause.

"I didn't even know your name," he admits. "Not until the second time."

Your fingers tremble over the paper. You don't know what to say.

"You don't have to be flattered," he says. "Obsession isn't love."

You don't speak. You can't. The sketches tell a truth you haven't been ready to admit: this isn't a story that began in the office or the contract or even that charged silence between his fingertips and your skin.

This started before you had words for it.

"I watched you," Adrian says from the doorway, voice low. "Not like a voyeur. Like an artist who sees the subject before the canvas does."

Your throat is dry. You place the sketch down, careful not to smudge the graphite, though your hands are shaking.

"You never said anything," you murmur, not turning around.

"I didn't know how," he says. "And then I did. And by then, I'd already decided what I wanted."

He steps into the room now, slower this time, as if sensing your hesitation. As if not wanting to spook whatever fragile part of you is still holding onto a version of this where you walk away.

You turn toward him. "And what exactly do you want, Adrian?"

He doesn't smile. Doesn't blink.

"I want the parts of you you're ashamed of. The thoughts that make you flinch. The versions of yourself you buried when no one was watching."

Your heart thunders in your chest.

"I don't need you to love me," he continues. "Not yet. But I will have all of you. Eventually."

The air coils tight around those words.

He moves closer now, closing the space between you inch by inch until the distance is more imagined than real. His hand comes up-not to grab, not to claim-but to lightly brush a lock of hair behind your ear. The gentleness of it is disarming. Disarming because he could take. But he doesn't.

Not yet.

"You don't need to give me everything tonight," he says. "But I will ask for more tomorrow."

You stare at him, at the man who somehow made you sign away pieces of yourself with a pen but never touched you.

"I don't know how to give you that," you whisper.

"That's the point," he murmurs. "You'll learn."

His thumb grazes your jaw. The contact is light. Barely there. And yet it scorches.

"But not tonight."

He steps back, and your chest aches at the absence.

"Tonight, you sleep in your room. Alone."

You blink. "You're sending me away?"

"No," he says. "I'm letting you go. For now."

You don't move.

And then-almost as if he hears the silent resistance in you-he adds, "But if you ever walk through that door on your own..."

He gestures to the sketch room. The obsessions. The gallery of you.

"...you don't walk out the same."

He leaves first.

And you stand there, surrounded by ink and graphite and years of wanting you never asked for.

You look up.

"But it is the beginning of it."