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

No blaming it on stress or trauma or memory lapses. No more pretending the nausea was just nerves or the aching in her chest was anything but what it truly was.

Damien Vale had carved himself into her in a way she could never undo.

She sat alone on the bathroom floor for hours, knees drawn up, the stick still trembling in her hand. The silence pressed against her ears like cotton. She wanted to scream. Wanted to claw the truth out of her own skin.

He said nothing at first—just crouched beside her, his presence warm and steady. When she finally lifted her eyes, broken and hollow, she didn't have to say the words. He saw everything in her face.

"I didn't know," she whispered, voice cracking. "I didn't know."

His arms were around her before she could collapse. "You're not alone," he murmured. "Not for a single second."

Later that night, after the tears had run dry and the silence settled soft again, she asked him, "If I… if I didn't want it?"

He didn't flinch. "Then I'll drive you wherever you need to go. But…"

"I would raise this child with you. Even if he's not mine. I'd love it like he was. Like you're mine."

For the first time in months, she felt—not fear, not dread, but hope.

What she didn't see was the shadow outside the window.

Stillness wrapped in a man's form.

A presence so cold the night bent around it.

Damien Vale stood beyond the glass, eyes burning into the scene like a man witnessing betrayal written in blood.

Whatever humanity had been left in him—

The Line That Changes Everything