Page 3 of Charmingly Obsessed

I feel him before I see him.

It’s a prickle of awareness on the back of my neck, a sudden drop in temperature in the humid air of the underground parking garage.

My frantic search for a taxi stalls. My heart, already hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs from our locked-door confrontation, kicks into overdrive.

Slowly, I turn my head.

Mykola Frez is standing just inside the massive glass doors of the lobby, half-shrouded in shadow. But there’s no mistaking the sharp silhouette of his bespoke shirt or the coiled tension in his frame. He looks like a predator watching its prey.

I whip my head back toward the street, my breath catching in my throat. Ignore him. Just get a cab. Disappear. A gust of wind whips a strand of hair across my face, and I shove it back with a trembling hand.

“Diana! Thank God I caught you!”

I jump, a startled gasp tearing from my lips. Aisana’s cheerful face is suddenly right in front of mine, her brown eyes wide. For a terrifying second, I thought it was him.

“Aisana, hey.” I’m trying to sound normal. We were never close—just polite smiles and breakroom pleasantries.

She’s the office sunshine. Well, and I’m the permanent storm cloud. “Ice Queen.” “Iceberg.” “Untouchable.” Labels slapped on me since kindergarten, peeled off only to be reapplied in bolder fonts.

Late at night, tangled in my sheets like a poorly wrapped burrito, mourning my sister Anya – my anchor, my only confidante, – I wish all of them were right. I wish I was an iceberg, vast and unyielding, capable of sinking ships without feeling a thing.

But I’m not. I’m just… shy. Pathologically so. Not the cute, blushing kind. The paralyzing, silent, blank-stare kind. I need time to thaw, to let emotions surface slowly. Time is currency, and no one’s ever wanted to invest it in my particular brand of dysfunction. Except Anya. And now she’s gone.

“I heard the craziest rumor! David said you were staying, but then Karina said your resignation was back on. Is it true? Are you really leaving us?”

My gaze flickers unwillingly back towards the entrance.

He hasn’t moved. He’s still watching. A lie forms on my lips, the one I fed him just minutes ago to escape that office.

I’ll be back tomorrow. But looking at Aisana’s earnest face, I can’t do it.

Besides, I need to believe it’s true. I need this to be the end.

I give a short, sharp nod. “Yeah. Today’s my last day.”

“No!” she gasps, genuinely crestfallen. “But why? We have to keep in touch! Let me just double-check I have your number.”

She pulls out her phone, and we go through the motions of confirming details. My entire being is thrumming with the urgent need to flee. I offer her a tight, forced smile and a mumbled goodbye.

“It was so great working with you, Diana!”

And then I make a fatal mistake. I look back one last time.

My blood turns to ice.

Aisana hasn’t gone back inside. She’s standing near the entrance, chattering away to Mykola Frez. And as I watch, frozen in horror, she turns, points directly at me, and gestures animatedly.

Oh, God. No.

She’s telling him I just confirmed I’m leaving for good. She’s telling him I lied straight to his face.

Yellow. A taxi. Finally. It’s crawling toward the pick-up zone, its light a beacon of salvation. I abandon all pretense of composure and lunge into its path, waving frantically.

The taxi slows. The exact same moment, Frez bolts .

He shoves past a startled Aisana and breaks into a dead run, his focus narrowed entirely on me.

“Go! Please, just drive!” I gasp, yanking the rear door open and scrambling inside. I slam it shut just as he clears the entrance pillars, his long legs eating up the distance between us.

The driver, an older man with weary eyes, gives me a quick look in the rearview mirror. His eyes widen as he sees the man charging across the garage like a heat-seeking missile.

“You got some psycho bothering you, miss?” he barks, throwing the car into gear.

Tires squeal on the smooth concrete, but a slow-moving sedan blocks our escape route. It’s only a second’s delay. It’s all he needs.

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP!

He pounds on the driver’s side window, his fist a blur of motion. We both jump.

“Get lost, buddy!” the driver yells through the glass, trying to maneuver around the other car.

Frez ignores him. He yanks furiously at my locked door handle, then ducks down, pressing his face against my window. His wild blue eyes lock onto mine, and I see it all there—the dawning, furious realization that I was running. That I had lied.

“Diana!” His voice is a muffled roar through the glass. “Stop the car! Get out!”

The driver floors it. The taxi lurches forward, and Frez lunges with it, his fingers scrabbling for the door handle.

“Hold on!” the driver growls.

And then Frez does something utterly insane.

I let out a strangled cry as he throws himself onto the hood of the moving taxi. His palm slaps against the windshield right in front of me, the impact shockingly loud. His face is inches from mine, distorted by the glass, his eyes blazing with a desperate, terrifying fury.

“Stop! He’ll be killed!” I scream, torn between terror of him and a sudden, sickening terror for him. “You have to stop the car!”

“He’ll let go! Crazy bastard will let go!”

The taxi swings sharply around a concrete pillar, and just like that, he’s gone. Vanished from the windshield.

My heart stops. Did he fall? Did we run over him? I twist in my seat, a scream building in my throat.

But as we burst from the garage onto the main street, I see him. He’s standing beside a sleek, black monster of SUV, yanking the driver’s side door open.

The taxi driver is still muttering curses as he accelerates into traffic.

I risk one last look in the side mirror.

The SUV’s headlights flare to life. With a squeal of tires that protests the brutal acceleration, it pulls out into traffic, swerving aggressively.

It’s coming after us.