The sun was still warm when Elara stepped out of the car.
Afternoon light spilled across the pavement, soft and golden, brushing against her skin like a kindness she didn’t know how to accept. She didn’t speak to the driver. Didn’t glance at the security personnel who’d escorted her back.
She’d heard Lucas’s voice clearly before they left the summit:
“Take her straight to her apartment.” No hesitation. No room for negotiation.
So she’d sat quietly in the back seat, hands folded, heart thudding, replaying every second of what had just happened.
Now, inside her apartment, the silence felt too clean. The curtains were half-drawn, letting in streaks of sunlight that painted the floor in gold. Her shoes were still on. Her bag was still slung over her shoulder. But she didn’t move.
She just stood there.
Her fingers still remembered the texture of Lucas’s suit.
Her breath still remembered the way he said,
“You’re safe.”
Her chest still remembered the way it tightened when he added,
“I’m glad you did.”
She hadn’t meant to grab him. Hadn’t meant to bury her face against him like that. But when she saw those Velmiran guards—those same faces from China, the ones that haunted her in dreams—her body had moved before her mind could catch up.
And Lucas… Lucas had moved faster.
She finally stepped out of her shoes, dropped her bag by the door, and walked to the couch like she was sleepwalking. The sunlight hit her face as she sat down, and for a moment, she closed her eyes.
She didn’t cry.
She didn’t shake.
She just sat there, trying to understand what had just happened.
Lucas had shielded her.
Not as a boss.
Not as a public figure.
As something else.
But what if it wasn’t personal?
What if it was just instinct? Just protocol? Just Lucas being Lucas?
She knew his past.
Everyone did.
Kael wasn’t just a name. He was the kind of love that left scars.
And Elara… Elara was no Kael.
She wasn’t bold.
She wasn’t unforgettable.
She was quiet, careful, the kind of girl who never made the first move—even when her heart was already halfway gone.
So maybe Lucas hadn’t felt anything.
Maybe he’d just reacted.
Maybe she was the only one giving weight to a moment that, for him, was just another act of control in a world that demanded it.
She pressed her fingers to her collarbone, where the seal had pulsed so violently earlier. It was quiet now. But her thoughts weren’t.
She’d liked him since she was eighteen.
Back when he was just a name in a magazine, a face on a screen, a voice in interviews that made her heart skip.
But this—this was different.
This was real.
And it scared her more than anything.
Because she didn’t know how to be seen like that.
And she didn’t know if he’d ever look at her that way again.
Maybe he hadn’t looked at her that way at all.
Maybe she was just hoping.