Lashirah_Hash

> He saw her once—and that was enough.

Elena Rivers was just a waitress at a high-end gala she didn’t belong to, filling in for someone else's shift. She didn’t know her spilled glass of champagne would be the moment Damien Vale—billionaire, recluse, and dangerously obsessive—noticed her.

He never spoke to her. Not then. But he watched.

And when he wanted her closer, he made it happen.

Now, Elena is working directly under him, unaware that the life she thinks she controls is already entangled in the hands of a man who doesn't just want her—he needs her.

He’s patient. He’s powerful. And he’s been planning this from the moment she walked into his view.

OBSESSION IN SILENCE

Elena never thought silence could feel gentle.

She'd only known it as the stillness between storms, the silence that wrapped around her after Damien left a room—cold, watchful, waiting to pounce. But here, in this quiet town tucked beyond the hills, silence felt like air after drowning.

She lived in a modest house with creaking floors and walls painted in shades she chose herself—soft white, pale green, anything that wasn't him.

There was no marble. No steel. No scent of cologne woven into her sheets. Just sunlight, the sound of birds, and the occasional rustle of leaves through her open window.

Christopher was around but never imposing.

He stopped by in the mornings sometimes with fresh fruit and terrible jokes. He fixed the back door without asking, taught her how to make ginger tea when she couldn't sleep, and never touched her without permission.

"Take your time," he told her once, looking at her like she was some fragile work of art someone had tried to destroy. "I'm not here to fix you. Just… to remind you what soft feels like."

And in those moments, she almost believed she could have a life without ghosts.

She'd wake with the sense that someone had just stepped out of the room. Her kitchen chair would be slightly moved. A book she hadn't touched would lie open on a different page. Once, she found the scent of a cologne she didn't own lingering near her bedroom door.

Christopher said it was trauma. Muscle memory. That her mind was playing tricks.

But deep down, something in her stomach clenched with a different kind of knowing.

And she wasn't sure if she was truly alone… or just being allowed to believe she was.

Borrowed Quiet