Chapter 47 ...Keep you here
He takes a slow sip, the ice clinking softly against the glass. He doesn't even look up as I reach the edge of the rug.
"You literally just told me you were over the legal limit. Are you intentionally trying to get wasted?"
He finally looks up, his gaze heavy and unreadable. He doesn't reach for the keys. He takes another slow sip, like he’s got all the time in the world, then sets the glass down with a soft clink against the table.
“I’ve been trying to buy this place for two years,” he says, tone easy. “Owners wouldn’t budge. Family history, sentimental value... all that predictable resistance.”
A faint tilt of his head, almost amused. "They finally signed the papers this afternoon. Everyone caves eventually, Kaden. It’s just a matter of finding the right price for their conviction."
I blink, the subtext hitting me. This isn't just about a bar. He’s telling me that no matter how many times I say no, no matter how much I resist, I have a price too. I’m slightly baffled that he dragged me all this way just to deliver a victory speech for his own ego. Just when I thought the intensity was fading into something human....
"I wasn't in the best mood earlier," he continues, quieter now. "But then I suddenly had something to celebrate. And celebrating alone..." He pauses, finally looking up at me, his eyes dark and unsettlingly focused. "Well, it turned out to be a bit depressing. So I dropped by the club to pick up the only other thing I’m currently excited about."
A heavy, charged silence follows. My eyes dart to the bottle again. How the hell did he find out this was my favorite brand? It’s not something I broadcast, and no way it's a coincidence. It should be impossible for him to know.
"I’m not a thing to be acquired," I say, my voice low and vibrating with a stern edge.
That familiar, arrogant smugness, the one I hate to admit I secretly missed over the last four days, creeps onto his face. He leans back, crossing one leg over the other, looking every bit like the king of this empty, expensive room.
"I don't need to acquire you, Kaden," he murmurs, his voice dropping into a register that makes the hair on my arms stand up. "You can’t exactly acquire what’s already yours."
I’m opening my mouth to give him a cutting, scorched-earth response....something about how he doesn't own a single atom of me, when the room suddenly shifts. The dim, amber lighting surges, becoming a bright, warm glow that spills across the floor. Then comes the sound.
The sharp, hauntingly beautiful draw of a bow across a string.
I spin around, my heart leaping into my throat. At the far end of the room, there’s a small, elevated stage I swear wasn’t even there a second ago. Or maybe I just didn’t notice it. But it’s not the stage that holds me there. It’s the familiar figure standing in the center of it.
My breath catches.
No fucking way.
My brain lags behind what my eyes are telling me. It's Tessa Delacroix.
I’m pretty sure my mouth is hanging open because this doesn't make any logical sense. Tessa is a forty- eight year old world-famous, award-winning virtuoso who sells out stadiums in Paris and London. She's the reason I ever picked up a violin in the first place. She’s my idol, my blueprint, the person whose recordings I’ve studied until the tapes hissed.
And here she is. In a nameless, empty bar in the middle of nowhere, playing a private set for a "drunk" billionaire and the idiot he keeps pulling in like he’s got some kind of claim on. For a brief, disorienting second, I genuinely wonder if I’m dreaming. I look back at Bastian, then back to the stage, my head spinning. I’m convinced this is some fever dream born from exhaustion.
"What is this?" I breathe out, the word barely a whisper. Is it a bribe? A show of power? A reminder that he can put entire world-class musicians in empty rooms just because he feels like it?
“It’s a way to willingly keep you here,” he suddenly says, like he’s picking the thoughts right out of my skull. His voice is low but firm, cutting through the music. A flicker in his eyes betrays him, a flash of something that looks dangerously like desperation. “Even if only for a few minutes.”
I don't look away. I can’t. I hold his gaze, trapped in that deep, unsettling blue. Maybe it’s the vibe of the room, or the fact that my idol is currently playing a private concert ten feet away, but the air between us has shifted. There’s an exposed look in his eyes. A raw, unpolished edge that he’s not supposed to be showing me, that I'm not supposed to be picking up on with such ease. It makes him look less like a predator and more like a hunter who's indirectly admitting he’s starving.
My heart is doing a frantic jump that has nothing to do with the melody in the background. He scoots slightly in his seat.
It's a massive lounge chair, built for distance, for control, for space between people who don’t need to be close. And yet he tilts his head and indicates the empty place beside him like that distance is optional. His eyes never once break contact with mine.
He’s not ordering me anymore, he’s just waiting.
I should probably leave. That’s the rational thought that belongs to someone who understands boundaries and consequences and whatever this is turning into.
I should grab my keys and drive until I hit the city limits. But my legs are already moving. My body feels heavy, pulled in by the gravity of him until I find myself sinking into the plush leather beside him.
I’m close enough to see the way the dim light catches the gold of his watch. I don’t look at the stage. I don’t look at the bottle of scotch. I just look at him, realizing that the "few minutes" he wanted are probably going to cost me my entire soul.
He leans back, his shoulder brushing mine, and for the first time in four days, I can actually feel my system start to settle, even if it’s into a fire. This should feel like pressure. Like manipulation. Like another one of his games where the rules only exist after I’ve already stepped into them.
But it doesn’t feel like that.
It feels like there’s something underneath the control that makes the gesture less calculated than I want it to be. And that’s what I don’t trust. The fact that part of me is starting to realize I’m not a victim of the mind games....I’m an active participant in them.