"I am guessing rebelling against your parents is what you enjoy the most." The words slipped past Cixi’s lips before her brain had time to approve them.

Rafael grinned wider, his dark eyes drifting to her side profile as they walked. "One of my favourites, you could say."

Cixi kept her gaze forward as she took careful steps. She was in her acting form now. The pregnant fiancee of Cassian Crown did not rush.

"How did you meet Cassian?" She heard Rafael ask.

Cixi glanced sideways and met his eyes. He was watching her with open fascination. He had a kind of curiosity that screamed trouble.

"In a cafe."

"Cafe?" Rafael looked mildly disappointed. "I was expecting a party."

"I do not do parties. I am too busy."

"Where do you work?"

"In a cafe."

"Which one?"

"Why do you want to know?" Cixi stopped walking and turned to face Rafael. Her mind caught up with the dangerous trajectory of this conversation. She could not walk into her workplace wearing a silicone pregnancy belly, which could cause her coworkers to suffer heart attacks. And she absolutely could not let Rafael visit her there and witness her flat belly.

"And why would I listen to you?" Rafael tilted his head as a smugness settled comfortably across his handsome features.

"If you show up, I will have no choice but to resign on the spot." She struggled to find the right words, and resigning seemed like the only thing she could come up with. Whatever came to her mind, she said it.

Her threat to leave her job caused Rafael to raise one dark brow.

And Cixi looked at him properly for the first time. He was not as tall as Cassian. Probably an inch shorter, maybe less. But he carried himself with the confidence of someone who knew exactly how attractive he was. His defined biceps pressed against the fabric of his fitted shirt, and his physique spoke of disciplined gym hours. He was not bulky, but neither was he lean.

And yet he could not be compared to Cassian.

Cassian existed on an entirely different plane. Where Rafael was handsome, Cassian was devastating. Where if Rafael moved with youthful confidence, Cassian moved with the predatory born to rule. Cassian’s presence alone could suffocate the room. His jawline, his deep, dark black eyes, the way he held a cigarette between his fingers as though the entire world could burn and he would not flinch, and the way his voice dropped into that low and dark dangerous manner that made her spine tingle and her breath catch—

Cixi instantly slammed the brakes on her own thoughts so violently that she nearly flinched.

What the hell was she doing? Standing in a Palace corridor, mentally composing a love letter to the man who had kidnapped her, threatened to imprison her, and whose family currently wanted to throw her behind bars?

She slapped herself internally with enough force to leave a mark on her dignity.

"Are you not being a little dramatic?" Rafael’s voice pulled her back to the present.

"My second name is Drama." Cixi glanced at her wristwatch and immediately started walking again, a little faster this time. Why was this Palace so impossibly enormous? She cursed the endless corridors for making her even more late than she already was.

This time, Rafael laughed openly, the sound bouncing off the vaulted ceiling. "I think I know why you caught his attention."

The laughter faded soon after the moment Cassain’s face flashed in his mind. His smile slipped away, and something dark settled across his expression. "Do you think he will return?"

"I think so." Cixi did not need a single second to consider her answer.

"You are quite confident for a woman who is pregnant, alone, and moved into a Palace full of hostile strangers to protect her child."

"I might sound insane, but my intuition tells me he is alive." She kept her voice steady, careful not to let anything suspicious bleed through. "I will believe he is alive until his body is found."

"Are you going to wait for him your entire life if his body never turns up?"

Why was he talking nonsense? Cixi wanted to ignore his question, but that would be rude considering he was her only ride to work. "Let us see," she answered flatly. Then she redirected the conversation before he could dig deeper. "Which side of the city are you heading to?"

"The Crown Hotel. I have business there today." They finally reached the Palace entrance, and a sleek black BMW waited for Rafael on the gravel driveway.

A uniformed driver stood beside the rear door, but Rafael waved him off and walked to the driver’s side himself.

"You can drop me at the Hotel. I will take a bus from there." Cixi had already texted Amanda that she would be late. Again... Twice in one week.... She prayed that Zoyar was present to keep Amanda distracted, and she mentally prepared herself for the punishment of being assigned cleaning duty for the entire shift.

Once they settled into the car and Rafael pulled out of the estate, he could not help himself. "I thought your life was in danger. So why would you want to ride a public bus, where you are far more exposed to danger?"

His words caught Cixi completely off guard. Panic flared hot in her chest, but she crushed it before it reached her face. She had been careless. A woman hiding inside the Crown Palace for protection would never casually hop onto a public bus.

"Yes, you are right." She recovered quickly, smoothing her voice into something grateful. "I simply did not want to be a nuisance to you."

"Living inside the Palace, you are already a nuisance to everyone." Rafael kept his eyes on the road, his hands relaxed on the steering wheel as the speedometer climbed past two hundred. "And you are worrying about something this small? I genuinely wonder how your mind works."

That landed squarely on Cixi’s ego. She could hear traces of Cassian’s bluntness echoing in Rafael’s voice, probably inherited from Michael Crown’s side of the bloodline.

"Excuse me? You cannot talk to me like that."

"I thought we were already friends, considering you are sitting in my car." Rafael did not slow down. The city skyline grew larger through the windshield.

"We are two people sharing a safe roof. And you are a kind human being who is helping a lady in need. That is all."

"If you reject my friendship, I might have no choice but to pursue you instead." Rafael grinned, and when he turned his head to look at her, Cixi was glaring at him with enough heat to melt the dashboard.