Chapter 31 My Favorite Colour
Close and personal.
I let out a humorless laugh.
They hadn’t mentioned the assault. The drugging. The fact that she had nearly collapsed in his arms while he tried to take advantage of her. No—those details didn’t sell. Romance did. Scandal did.
My phone had been blowing up since dawn. Emails from board members. Calls from distant relatives I barely remembered. Texts from people pretending to care while secretly enjoying the spectacle.
I ignored them all.
All I could think about was how Jasmine would react when she woke up.
How would I tell her that her name—her face—was everywhere? That strangers were dissecting her life, her body, her intentions like it was a sport? That her quiet, carefully built world had been shattered overnight?
Her safety was compromised now.
Completely.
Paparazzi wouldn’t stop at speculation. They would dig. Follow. Camp outside her apartment. Break into trash bins. Photograph her grocery runs. Twist every expression into a headline.
And the worst part?
She hadn’t chosen this.
I stood abruptly and walked to the window, pulling the curtain aside just enough to look out at the city below. Somewhere out there, people were already hunting for her. And I was sitting here, powerless to undo it.
“It’s not that hard,” I muttered to myself.
I would protect her.
No matter what it took.
If I had to move her here, keep her under guard, limit her exposure to the outside world—I would. If locking her away was the only way to keep her safe, then so be it. She might hate me for it. But hatred was better than harm.
I glanced at the clock on the wall.
Gerald should have reached her apartment by now.
I had sent him ahead hours ago, the moment the doctor confirmed she would be out for a while. His job was simple—secure the place. Collect essentials. Make sure nothing was stolen, destroyed, or leaked.
The paparazzi were ruthless. They didn’t care about lines or laws when a big enough story was involved. And right now, Jasmine Scott was the story.
The thought made my chest tighten painfully.
What if she didn’t forgive me?
What if this—all of this—was too much?
I pressed my palm against the glass, my reflection staring back at me, tired and furious and afraid in a way I hadn’t allowed myself to be in years.
I had faced hostile takeovers. Assassination attempts. Betrayals that would have crushed lesser men.
But this?
This terrified me.
Because for the first time, the stakes weren’t just mine.
I turned away from the window and sank back into my chair, burying my face in my hands.
“I just hope,” I whispered into the empty room, “that it doesn’t cost me my tesoro.”
Because if it did—if this world broke her the way it broke so many others—I wasn’t sure I would survive the aftermath.
And God help anyone who tried to take her from me now.
~ JASMINE ~
“No!
Please—stop!”
The words ripped out of me, raw and broken, but they did nothing. My cries dissolved into the air as if they were never spoken at all. No matter how violently I struggled, no matter how hard I sobbed, he didn’t let go.
I could feel him everywhere.
His lips lingered against my skin—claiming, smothering, suffocating. It felt like the air had been stripped from my lungs, like my body no longer remembered how to breathe.
Panic clawed viciously at my chest, sharp and unforgiving, and then his arm came around my neck.
A chokehold.
Firm. Merciless.
Fat tears spilled freely, blurring my vision as they ran down my cheeks, trailed along my jaw, my neck—spilling onto my body.
Bare.
The realization struck me so violently my breath hitched.
I was naked.
Completely naked.
My eyes widened in horror as I stared down at myself, at my exposed skin, my vulnerability, my helplessness. And then—slowly, dread pooling thick and heavy in my stomach—I looked up.
At Jace, then it was him.
Fear crept into my spine, cold and familiar, slithering through my veins with practiced ease. My heart slammed painfully against my ribs as recognition hit me full force.
He found me.
Just like he always said he would.
He found me.
“I told you,” his voice echoed—deep, dark, everywhere. Not just around me but inside my head, sinking into my thoughts, wrapping around my mind like chains. “You could never escape me, Cass.”
Cass.
The name dragged me under.
I clawed at his arm, my fingers scraping uselessly against his skin as I fought to breathe, to pull away, to survive—but the more I struggled, the heavier everything became. It was like sinking beneath black water, my limbs growing weaker, my lungs burning.
I was suffocating.
Dying.
I needed help.
I needed to get out.
I kicked and thrashed, my body fighting desperately, but it was pointless. My strength faded rapidly, terror crushing me as my vision blurred and the darkness closed in.
Oh God—
The thought barely formed before my eyes fluttered shut, my body finally giving in to the weight pulling me down.
I jolted upright with a sharp gasp.
Air tore into my lungs violently as I sucked in breath after breath, my chest heaving uncontrollably. My forehead was slick with sweat, my entire body trembling as if I had just escaped something real—something tangible.
My hand flew to my chest, pressing hard against my racing heart. It was pounding so fast it hurt, echoing loudly in my ears. My cheeks burned, wet with tears that hadn’t stopped falling.
I sat there for a long moment, shaking, trying to steady myself.
When my breathing finally slowed, I squeezed my eyes shut and dragged a hand through my sticky, sweat-damp hair, pulling it back from my face. My fingers trembled as I did it.
I swung my legs off the bed, my feet landing against cool tiles. That was when I truly looked around.
The room was massive—unrealistically so. Bigger than my entire house. Bigger than anything I had ever woken up in. But that wasn’t what caught my attention.
The colour.
Beige.
My favourite colour.