Not hard to hack.
A small knot tightened in my stomach. I should have found it creepy. Instead, I pictured his hands—steady, sure—the way they’d wrapped around the wheel. My breath snagged, just once, before I forced it steady.
I could report you.
You could.
A pause.
But you won’t.
A shiver rippled up my spine, and the skin at the back of my neck prickled.
You’re pretty sure of yourself. What’s stopping me?
Because you wouldn’t still be messaging. You’d have already blocked me and filed a report.
My fingers curled around the phone until the edge bit into my palm. A grin threatened, reckless and warm, and I fought it down before it could give me away.
The kettle clicked off. I poured steaming water over a tea bag, letting the curl of heat outflank the fire licking up my back.
My phone buzzed again.
I’ll meet you in the lobby. Fifteen minutes.
His confidence worked under my skin, ticklish and aggravating at once. I hesitated just long enough for the steam to cloud my vision, then typed—deliberately slow.
I’ll be there.
Twenty minutes later,my pulse chased its tail as I crossed the lobby’s marble sea.
He was leaning against a pillar like he owned the building, one ankle hooked over the other, thumb scrolling his phone as time bent around him. The scarf was a lie, of course, but he’d wrapped something dark and cashmere around his wrist like a dare.
Even at a distance, Luka pulled focus without effort. His dark hair was cut close, exposing the clean lines of his skull and hard angle of his jaw. A dark wool jacket hung open over a fitted charcoal turtleneck, worn jeans skimming the line between casual and deliberate. His shoulders were built for leaning on doorframes, his arms for bracing someone against them.
When he lifted his head, his gaze locked on me—precise, unhurried, stripping away the rest of the lobby until there was only him. My knees went liquid under my skirt, and for one treacherous second, I forgot to breathe.
I kept walking, heels clicking on marble, pretending I didn’t feel the heat rolling off him in slow, measured waves.
Up close, the scale of him was worse. Taller than I remembered, broader too, with the settled confidence of a man long past proving himself—like the space between us was just an illusion he’d allow me to keep until he decided otherwise.
“Nice scarf,” I said, sidling up, aiming for lightness but hearing the quaver in my voice.
His gaze tracked my face, lingering just long enough to make my pulse trip. “You’re late.”
“And that’s not my scarf,” I said, flicking it with a fingernail. “I’ve never seen it in my life.”
He considered me, then the scarf, then the V of bare skin at my collar. “It is now.”
He stepped in, and I froze. I couldn’t have moved if I’d wanted to.
Deep down, I didn’t.
My breath caught high in my chest as he looped the scarf around my neck once, twice, the wool snagging in my hair before he tugged it into place with a slow, deliberate draw. The knot pressed warm against my throat, heat spilling down my spine.
“You don’t know how to dress for this weather. Let’s fix that.”
The scarf smelled of him—spice and darkness, like smoke clinging to velvet. My thoughts juddered, all the old firewall scripts in my head tripping over each other. I’d meant to keep things light, to throw the scarf back in his face. But the moment he touched me, the lobby lost its depth, flattening into light and silence.