Page 6 of The Billionaire's Obsession

"You should take a moment," he says, nodding toward the service corridor. "Compose yourself."

It's a dismissal, yet it doesn't feel unkind. It feels like... consideration. Like he's offering me an escape route from the embarrassment of what just happened.

"Thank you," I whisper, backing away from the table, from him, from the inexplicable connection that seems to have formed between us without my consent or comprehension.

I make it to the service corridor on unsteady legs, one hand pressed against the wall for support. My skin still tingles where he touched me—wrist, waist, the phantom pressure of his fingers leaving invisible marks.

What is happening to me? Why this man? Why tonight?

I've been touched before—casual dates, a serious boyfriend in freshman year before finances forced me to prioritize work over relationships. Nothing has ever felt like this—like my body is recognizing something my mind doesn't yet understand. Like some primitive part of me is responding to a call I didn't know I was waiting to hear.

The realization terrifies me. Damon Blackwell is dangerous—not because of his wealth or power, but because of how easily he sliced through my carefully constructed defenses. How effortlessly he made me feel seen when I've spent months perfecting the art of invisibility.

I splash water on my face in the small employee restroom, careful not to smudge my makeup. In the harsh fluorescent lighting, I look both exactly the same and fundamentally altered. My eyes are too bright, my cheeks flushed with color that has nothing to do with cosmetics.

When I return to the ballroom, I deliberately take a route that keeps me far from table seven. But distance doesn't diminish my awareness of Damon's presence. I feel him like a gravitational pull, my body instinctively orienting toward him despite my rational mind's protests.

For the remainder of the night, I move through the crowd with mechanical efficiency, smiling, serving, playing my role. But beneath the performance, something has awakened—something hungry and curious and frightened all at once.

Just before midnight, as the gala winds toward its conclusion, I allow myself one final glance at table seven. Damon is gone, his seat empty, his departure unnoticed by me despite my hyperawareness of his presence all night.

I feel a curious mixture of relief and disappointment. Relief because I can finally breathe normally again. Disappointment because...because what? Because I wanted another moment under his intense scrutiny? Because some irrational part of me hoped he might seek me out again?

It's madness. I don't even know him. He doesn't know me, despite the unsettling feeling that he saw more of me in our brief interactions than people who've known me for years.

As I collect empty glasses from abandoned tables, I tell myself this night was an aberration. A strange, charged encounter that will fade into memory by morning. Damon Blackwell will return to his world of corporate acquisitions and luxury penthouses. I'll return to my world of night classes and double shifts.

Our orbits intersected briefly, that's all. Cosmic coincidence. Nothing more.

So why does it feel like something fundamental has shifted? Why does the night air, when I finally step outside after changing out of my uniform, feel charged with possibilities that didn't exist twelve hours ago?

I wrap my thin jacket tighter around myself and begin the long walk to the bus stop, my sensible shoes pinching with every step. Behind me, the Caledon Gala continues its glittering finale. Ahead lies my normal life—practical, determined, focused on survival and incremental progress.

But something new walks with me now—the memory of storm-gray eyes that saw through pretenses, of hands that caught me with possessive certainty, of a connection that felt inevitable rather than accidental.

And deep down, in a place I'm not ready to acknowledge, lives the unsettling certainty that Damon Blackwell isn't finished with me yet.

CHAPTER

FOUR

Lucy

I stareat my phone screen, blinking hard to make sure my eyes aren't playing tricks. The balance that has haunted me for years—$43,782.19 in student loans—now shows a big fat zero. My fingers are cold, but there's a warmth in my chest, an uncomfortable heat that I recognize as fear. Nobody gives away that kind of money without expecting something in return.

Nobody.

The ancient radiator in my studio apartment clanks and sputters, fighting a losing battle against the early morning chill. I pull my threadbare cardigan tighter around my shoulders, still fixated on my phone screen. This has to be a glitch. Some IT person at the loan company is probably getting fired today.

I refresh the page. Still zero.

My tiny apartment suddenly feels even smaller, the walls pressing in with the weight of this impossibility. Dirty dishes from last night's ramen are still piled in the sink. A stack of textbooks tilts precariously on my yard-sale desk. The digital clock on my microwave blinks 7:16, reminding me I have classin forty-four minutes and a shift at the campus coffee shop right after. I don't have time for financial mysteries.

Yet I can't look away from that zero.

Four years of undergraduate studies in business administration, with a minor in economics. Two more years for my MBA that I'm still grinding through. All those sleepless nights. The three jobs I've juggled. The meals I've skipped. The social life I've sacrificed. All compressed into a number that has defined my existence—until today.

My hands shake as I dial the loan company's number. I expect to wait the usual eternity, but someone picks up after only two rings.

---