Chapter 214: Golden catch
Stefan Shepherd, one of the Four. The nation’s richest, most untouchable families, a name spoken like myth in the kind of circles Aveline had only danced around in the shadows of. And here she’d been, laughing on her couch with him. Wrapped in his arms. Confiding in him.
He’d hugged her.
Aveline sat back, phone slipping a little in her hand as she stared at the ceiling, her pulse a wild, unsteady thing.
She wasn’t ready to let this go. Not yet. sex was fun. Danger was easy. But this? Stefan was something else entirely. A soft life wrapped in silk and power. The kind of man who could give her everything — security, scandal, safety, status. And maybe... just maybe... the kind of love that didn’t feel like a punishment.
She smirked, thumb tracing the engraved letters on the watch.
"Well, well, Dr. Shepherd," she murmured to the empty room. "Looks like you’re not getting away that easily."
–
The hallway stretched before him, dim and quiet. The kind of quiet that wasn’t peaceful, no, this was the heavy, suffocating kind. The kind that settled over your chest and made it hard to breathe.
Stefan made his way down it slowly, the floorboards creaking under his steps like they were warning him to turn back. The faint glow of a lamp seeped from beneath Steve’s door. He was still up, or the light had been left on in case... in case no one came.
Stefan hesitated, his hand hovering over the doorknob. He could still smell the whiskey clinging to his jacket, could feel the sting of old arguments in the back of his throat. All those years of Steve stepping up, playing protector, driving them crazy with his stubbornness, and now here they were. Running out of time.
He took a breath and pushed the door open.