Cixi’s nostrils flared at the thought of Cassian always making sure everything bent to his will. If he could wait for a week, what was wrong with waiting three more? Instead of seven days, it would be only thirty days—720 hrs.

She unfolded her arms and took a single step toward him, deciding to do something reckless. "How about I go and tell your family you are alive?"

Cassian went still for once as he locked his eyes on Cixi.

With each meeting, her boldness seems to grow, and this time it shines through even more.

Then a sound erupted from Cassian’s chest. Deep, rolling, rich, and utterly genuine laughter. Not the dark chuckle he deployed as a weapon. Or the throaty rumble he used to make her uncomfortable. This was real laughter.

The kind that crinkled the corners of his dark eyes and pulled his head back against the sofa cushion and filled the entire suite with a sound so unexpectedly human that Cixi stood baffled, staring at him.

She had surprised him again. The girl who lied about carrying his child, who bit his lip at a nightclub, who drafted a kissing contract, who convinced his family to house her on his private floor, had just looked him dead in the eyes and threatened to expose his greatest secret... outdone herself this time. "Did you just threaten me... Lousy Kisser?"

There he went again, calling her Lousy Kisser.

He pulled out a silver cigarette case, took one out, and lit it with his limited-edition lighter. After taking a long drag, he placed the lighter on the table and held the cigarette between his fingers, pulling it away from his lips before releasing the smoke slowly through his nose.

"If you cannot show patience..." The smoke reached her, and Cixi immediately waved her hand in the air, trying to push it away before it reached her lungs. "...then it might just slip out of my mouth. Who knows?" She kept her voice steady, even though irritation was rising in her chest. "And could you stop smoking in front of me? I don’t want to be a passive smoker and turn my lungs into barbecue meat."

Cassian said nothing in return. He kept smoking and watched her.

Cixi, still on her feet, turned away and walked toward the balcony glass, stopping where she could see the city lights outside. She avoided looking at him, but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel it.

The feel of his eyes on her... watching her.

With every drag Cassian took, his gaze stayed on her, narrowing slightly, and with every exhale, it felt as though he was studying her the way a predator studies something it had already marked.

Standing by the glass door, Cixi pondered. Was this his way of showing dominance? Or was this how he made people nervous? Women nervous?

She tried to think, but her heart had already started to race, faster and louder, until it echoed in her ears.

Every part of her body was warning her that Cassian was planning something, something she wouldn’t expect, something— She cut the thought off... because her pulse was already too loud that it drowned out everything else.

Had she made a mistake by challenging him?

And yet...

For a moment, she had made him go silent.

And that feeling... That felt like eating ice cream in the middle of a scorching summer.

Cassian brought the cigarette to his lips, inhaled one last drag, held the smoke in his lungs for three seconds, and exhaled a thin white stream toward the ceiling. Then he leaned forward and pressed the glowing bud into the crystal ashtray on the side table. The ember hissed and died. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

He then rose from the sofa.

Cixi did not look at him. She stood with her back to him, her arms hanging at her sides, her eyes fixed on the city skyline beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows. She did not need to look. She heard the leather cushion creak as it released his weight. The soft rustle of his shirt fabric shifting across his shoulders. The first footstep. Then the second.

Her heart skipped.

Then she heard the third step. He was getting closer. The fourth one. More closer. Each footfall landed on the hardwood floor with the rhythm of a man who sauntered toward what he wanted because rushing was beneath him. He prowled.

Cixi’s pulse climbed into her throat. She heard his breathing now. Close... Too close... Close enough that she could count the seconds between each inhale, and each exhale. Her hand moved to her chest on its own, pressing flat against her sternum as though she could physically hold her heart inside her ribcage and stop it from pounding its way out through her ribs.

Then she felt him.

His arm coiled around her waist from behind.

His fingers spread across her stomach, his palm pressing flat against the thin fabric of her oversized T-shirt, and his grip tightened with the possessive, unrushed certainty of a man wrapping his hand around something that belonged to him.

Cixi froze.

Every muscle in her body locked at once. Her legs went rigid. Her arms turned to stone at her sides. Her lungs stopped pulling air. She stood perfectly, completely, absolutely still, pinned against his chest by a single arm and the entire gravitational force of his presence.

His chest pressed against her back. She felt the slow, steady rise and fall of his breathing against her shoulder blades, each inhale pushing his ribs into her spine with a pressure that made her acutely, painfully aware of how much larger he was. How much stronger. How much closer?

His face lowered to the nape of her neck.

She felt his breath first. A warm, slow exhale that ghosted across the exposed skin between her hairline and her collar. The heat brushed over her nape, drifted along the side of her throat, and scattered goosebumps down both arms so fast it felt like someone had poured ice water over her while setting her on fire at the same time.