Chapter 4: Into the Fire
Isla knew she should step back and create space. Draw the hard professional line she had promised herself she’d never cross. She was here to work, to settle a debt, to keep control, not to fall prey to the dangerous gravity of Damien Wolff.
But she didn’t move. She didn’t even breathe. Something enticing and electric danced in the silence, winding its way around her lungs, squeezing her chest with invisible hands. Her thoughts scattered, lost to the primal rhythm that pulsed between them. Logic dissolved, slipping through her fingers like water. Nothing else existed, only him.
The air between them shimmered with heat, thick and humming with tension. Her body was betraying her, leaning slightly toward his, every nerve on edge, every heartbeat pounding louder in her ears. His fingers, still hovering near her skin, didn’t press, didn’t push. But the promise was there, unspoken and yet deafening.
“Say the word,” Damien murmured, his breath brushing her cheek like a secret. “And I’ll walk away.”
He was giving her an out. Just a moment to enable her to redraw a line that had smeared before she had even realised what was happening. But she hesitated. It was just a flicker, no more than the catch of breath or a blink too slow, but he saw it. The corner of his mouth tilted, not in mockery, but in knowledge. She hadn’t said it. She wasn’t stopping him and that was the problem.
His fingers slid down, grazing the hollow at the base of her throat, his touch so light it might’ve been imagined if not for the trail of heat it left behind. Then he dropped his hand entirely, stepping back just enough for the cool air to hit the spot where he’d touched her.
The sudden absence made her ache.
“You like testing limits, don’t you?” he asked, voice low, almost musing, but with that glint in his silver eyes, that knowing, dangerous amusement that made her pulse stutter.
She swallowed hard, trying to steady herself, to anchor her mind back in reason. “I don’t follow rules blindly.”
His smile was slow, wicked, almost indulgent. “No,” he said. “I imagine you don’t.”
The silence that followed felt strangely intimate, thick with things unsaid. Her breath came uneven. Her skin still tingled where he’d touched her. Everything about him, his scent, his stillness and the deliberate way he held her gaze, was designed to unnerve and it worked.
Then, just as suddenly as he’d closed the distance, he stepped back fully. He turned and adjusted his cufflinks like nothing had happened, like the last few seconds hadn’t nearly unraveled her. The shift should have brought relief, but it didn’t. Instead, it left her raw and wanting. Unsettled in ways she didn’t have words for.
“I’ll see you at seven,” he said over his shoulder, casual and controlled.
She blinked. “Seven?”
“For dinner.” He glanced back, arching a brow, the picture of cool authority. “You do read your contract, don’t you?”
Her stomach flipped. She had read it. As a matter of fact, every word and every clause. Except… Her mind tripped back through the pages, and she saw it then, tucked into the fine print, easy to miss but impossible to ignore now:
‘The employee is required to accompany Mr. Wolff to formal engagements as part of her professional duties.’
Damn it. He must have caught the flicker of recognition on her face because his smirk deepened. He was enjoying this, watching her catch up, watching her unravel just a little more.
“Wear something elegant, Isla,” he said, voice almost gentle, which made it all the more dangerous. “And try not to be late. I don’t take well to tardiness and disobedience .”
Before she could find a reply with a witty and sharp response, he was already moving, reaching the door. He didn’t look back and didn't give her another chance to protest.
The door clicked softly behind him as he exited his office. She was alone again in this huge place. Standing in the middle of his office, skin flushed, heart still hammering like it had forgotten how to beat properly.
Her fingers curled into fists at her sides, as if trying to hold on to something solid. Something rational. But it was no use. The scent of him still lingered in the air. Her body still remembered the press of his fingers, the way his voice had curled around her name like silk.
He was dangerous and she was dangerously drawn to him. She had come here determined to remain immune. To keep her distance and to outlast the terms of her obligation and leave with her dignity intact. But Damien Wolff had a way of bending the rules, her rules, without ever breaking them.
And the worst part? She hadn’t stopped him.
One thing was clear: she wasn’t just flirting with fire anymore. She was already burning.