Chapter 196 WE HAVE AN ANNOUNCEMENT
AURORA’S POINT OF VIEW.
As the car rolled onto the curb, multiple flashes of the cameras stabbed my vision. My heart lurched to my throat, my grip on the seats tight as they swarmed the car like venomous bees. “Breathe, Roar,” Kai whispered, his hand grabbing my clenched one. “I’m here…it’ll be alright.”
“I know….I just… It’s just too much.” I whispered, my heart’s pounding now reduced due to his strong but gentle grip.
“We can stay as long as you want, Aurora.” He pulled me closer, letting my head rest against his chest, so he stroked my back. “We won't go in until you want to.”
“But…what about your father?” I gasped, the beat of his heart wild, but sending gentle zaps to my skin.
“He can wait too.” He chuckled, his tone light. We were fake….this was fake. So why do I feel so at rest in his arms? Kai was handsome, painfully handsome. Any girl would look at him ten times and be unable to tear her gaze away. It made things much harder to stay away from him.
Especially with his not-so-fake, not-so-performative caresses every time. It didn’t matter if we were in front of Morgan; he still touched me.
We stayed there for a second; the tinted windows didn’t give us away to the feral reporters closing in like wolves. The car was a sanctuary, a bubble of silence and expensive leather that felt worlds away from the chaos pressing against the glass, the chaos awaiting us the moment we open the door. Outside, the world was screaming for a piece of us, but inside, there was only the steady, rhythmic thrum of Kai’s heart beneath my ear.
I breathed in, rubbing the bridge of my nose against his suit absentmindedly, the scent of cedar, rum, and the underlying scent of him… the combination of it all sent my panic into smoke.
"You're doing that thing again," he murmured, his voice vibrating through his chest and into my cheek.
"What thing?" I asked, my voice small as I shivered. He rubbed small circles onto my arm, the pad of his thumb smooth against my skin. The dress he;d chosen was a backless one. At first, I thought it would be too scandalous for something with his dad and mine. However, Kai’s response was;
‘This is how we make a statement, green.” A part of me thinks he and his dad have a strained relationship. He does everything possible to piss the man off.
"Thinking too much. Your heartbeat is racing so much that you might send it into overdrive. It’s like you’re looking for an exit." He pulled back just enough to look at me, his eyes gently caressing my face….they had that same unreadable note of emotion in them that ceased to exist whenever he looked at someone other than me, his thumb tracing the line of my jaw with a feather-light touch that made my breath hitch. "There is no exit tonight, Aurora. We find a way through instead, and I need you to know this. You will not do this alone anymore.
Not for as long as I exist.”
I looked into his eyes, those dark, swirling orbs that usually held nothing but ice. Right now, they hold something else. Something warm. Something that felt dangerously like a promise to be fulfilled.
"Why are you doing this, Kai?" I whispered, my heart rate going off yet again. "Beyond the merger. Beyond Silas. Why are you being so... kind to me?"
The corner of his mouth quirked up, a ghost of a smile that didn't reach his eyes but softened the lethal edges of his face. "Maybe I’m just tired of playing the villain in everyone else's story. Or maybe," he leaned in, his lips inches from mine, the air between us suddenly thick enough to drown in or slice with a knife, "I just like the way you look when you're not afraid of me."
For a second, the reporters, the cameras, and the looming shadow of Silas Mercer over us vanished. Until all that was left was just the heat of him, the possessive weight of his hand on my waist, and a pull so strong it felt like gravity.