Clara practically fled the restroom, her heart hammering a rhythm that felt far too heavy for her chest. The restaurant's interior was stifling—the clinking of silverware and Daisy's soft, persistent whimpering felt like static in her brain. She needed air.
Cold, sharp air.
She pushed through the heavy glass doors leading to the restaurant's private terrace. The garden was a manicured maze of dark hedges and white roses, illuminated by low-voltage floor lamps that cast long, distorted shadows.
She leaned against a stone pillar, closing her eyes and letting the night breeze cool her heated skin.
She didn't hear the door open. She only heard the heavy, rhythmic snap of leather shoes on stone.
Before she could turn, a hand clamped firmly around her wrist. In one fluid, violent motion, she was pulled away.
The world tilted as his fingers locked around her wrist, his strength catching her off guard before the rough stone of the exterior wall bit into her shoulder blades.
"Julian!" she gasped, her breath hitching.
He was right there. He looked disheveled in a way that was terrifyingly handsome.
The scent of expensive Scotch was now masked by the sharp, acrid bite of a cigarette he must have smoked in a hurry. He was close—too close—his body a solid, unyielding weight pinning her in place.
His eyes weren't just dark anymore; they were hungry, flickering with an obsession that looked like it was physically hurting him.
"You think you can just walk away?", his voice wasn't a command anymore; it was a plea disguised as a threat.
"You sit there, you toast to Arthur, you smile at him with my name still practically etched into your soul, and then you just... step out for air?"
"Julian, let go," Clara said, her voice trembling with a mix of anger and adrenaline. she planted her palms against his chest and shoved, but it was like trying to move a mountain.
He didn't budge. Instead, he gripped her wrists, pinning them above her head against the stone.
"I can't," he muttered, leaning his face into the crook of her neck, inhaling deeply. "I've spent three years wishing you'd leave me alone, and now that you have, I can't breathe. What did you do to me? What kind of game is this?"
"It's not a game!" Clara yelled, struggling against his hold, her heels scuffing the stone. "It's called moving on! It's called me realizing that I'm worth more than being a shadow in your life! Get off me!"
Julian didn't move. He leaned in, his lips grazing the shell of her ear, his grip tightening just enough to be felt but not enough to bruise.
He was shaking—the Dark CEO, the man who controlled markets and broke competitors, was shaking because a woman had stopped looking at him.
"You don't get to move on," he whispered, his voice cracking with a raw, ugly desire. "I didn't give you permission to stop loving me."
Clara stopped struggling for a second, her eyes wide as she stared up at him. She saw the madness in his gaze, a terrifying obsession that had nothing to do with the "novel" and everything to do with a man losing his grip on reality.
"What is your problem!?", her voice echoed against the dark hedges, and for a split second, she glanced at the glass doors, half-expecting Daisy's pale face to appear.
But Julian didn't care. He was too far gone.
"You have Daisy! You have the girl you fought for! You have the 'White Lotus' waiting for you at the table with her unseasoned egg! Why are you out here attacking the woman you've spent three years insulting? Do you even know what you want, or are you just so pathetic that you only want what you can't have anymore?"
Julian flinched as if she'd slapped him, but he didn't let go. If anything, he leaned his weight further into her, his eyes searching hers for a spark of the old devotion—and finding only a furious, beautiful stranger.