Chapter 5 Adam Steel

"You know you're screwed when you can't decide whether to commit murder or confess love... all in the same breath."

I was probably going to kill myself.

Or every goddamn man in this room who looked at her that way.

Fay Wolfgang.

Holy. Fucking. Hell.

She walked in like she didn't just shift the entire gravitational pull of the ballroom. Like the floor wasn't about to split open from how hard men were snapping their necks to watch her.

And I?

I stood there like an idiot with a champagne glass in one hand and Charlotte dangling off the other like a damn barnacle. My jaw clenched so tight I could hear my molars whispering "abort mission."

I was in trouble.

Deep, bone-carving, soul-choking trouble.

The kind that had no exits.

No Plan B.

Fay looked like revenge and rebirth wrapped in silk and sin.

Short black dress. Flowy, yet criminal.

Legs for days.

Hair wild, uncharacteristically parted to the side, brushing her bare shoulder like it had every right to seduce the air around her.

And heels... those high stilettos that gave her height she didn't need and power she already commanded.

She wasn't just beautiful.

She was lethal.

And every son of a bitch in the room was looking at her like they'd just remembered they had working eyes.

I gripped my glass harder. My throat was dry.

She hadn't even glanced in my direction.

Of course not.

She wouldn't.

She hadn't replied to my messages for months.

But she showed up.

She fucking showed up.

And suddenly, I couldn't breathe.

"Isn't that Fay?" Charlotte's voice rang beside me, high-pitched and sweet manufactured like everything else about her.

I barely nodded.

"She looks... different," she added, and I could hear the acid behind the words.

Yeah, she looked different.

She looked unreachable.

I wanted to do two things, violently and immediately.

First, smack the living shit out of the woman clinging to me like a second skin.

Second, haul Fay Wolfgang over my shoulder and get her the hell out of this goddamn place where every man was scratching their dicks trying to figure out how to approach her.

"Excuse me," I muttered, untangling myself from Charlotte's grip.

"But they're about to do the toast!" she called after me.

Toast this.

I made a straight line through the crowd, but I didn't approach Fay. Not yet.

I needed a minute.

Because if I opened my mouth now, I'd either say something stupid or drop to my knees like a man in confession. And neither was a good look in a room full of snakes.

I found the bar and downed a glass of bourbon in one go.

Burned like truth on the way down.

I leaned against the counter, trying not to look for her, but failing miserably.

She was surrounded, of course.

Men flocked to her like moths to a bonfire.

Laughing. Grinning. Fidgeting with their ties.

Acting like they stood a damn chance.

She smiled politely. Eyes distant. Controlled. But I saw it.

I knew her.

I saw that mask. The one she wore when she was tolerating bullshit.

And it killed me.

I should've been the one beside her.

Should've been the one she looked at when she was tired of the room.

Should've been the one touching her back lightly to let her know I was there.

But I wasn't.

I was the reason she had to pretend none of this mattered.

She told me once quietly, with that soft conviction only she had that she wanted to explore something more.

And I had nodded.

Then, two weeks later, I told her Charlotte was pregnant.

I might as well have slapped her across the face.

She didn't scream. Didn't cry.

She smiled.

Said "Congratulations."

And walked out of my life with the grace of a queen and the silence of a grave.

I never saw her again.

Until now.

Jordan appeared beside me out of nowhere, sipping something neat and dark.

"Who's the beauty?" he asked, even though he already knew.

I didn't answer.

He smirked. "You're vibrating."

"Fuck off."

"She yours?"

"She was never mine."

Jordan eyed me for a second. "But you wish she had been."

I didn't respond.

He whistled low, his eyes following her movement across the room like she was poetry he didn't understand but damn well wanted to read.

"Don't," I warned.

He raised an eyebrow. "Don't what?"

"Don't go near her."

He laughed. "You don't own her, Adam."

I set the glass down hard. "I know. That's the problem."

He didn't say anything after that. Just nodded once, almost like he understood more than I wanted him to.

Across the room, Fay turned her head just slightly and her gaze brushed mine.

For a split second, I felt it.

Like impact.

Like gravity shifted and remembered my name.

Then she looked away.

Just like that.

Gone again.

And me?

I'd never felt more like a fucking ghost.