Page 68 of Sweet Obsession

It was muscle memory by now. The only thing that ever really calmed me. The only thing that ever felt mine. The fire crackled low in the hearth. My fingers moved in rhythm with the quiet, delicate and focused, until I felt it again.

That shift in the room. That cold ripple in the air that only came when he was near. I didn’t need to look up.

But I did. His shadow fell across my lap, and when my eyes met his, he was already holding something out toward me.

Not a weapon. Not a command. A photograph. Faded and wrinkled at the edges.

A woman, young, wild-haired, beautiful. Laughing into the camera like the world was hers for the taking. “My mother,” Misha said, voice rough, almost unused.

I stared, stunned.

He never talked about his past.

Hell, I wasn’t sure he had a past. He moved through this world like it was something he’d conquered in a past life and came back only to rule it colder.

“She used to wear a necklace,” he went on, voice softer now, but harder in other ways. “Tiny black pearls. Iron links. Not expensive. Not pretty. But it was hers. Wore it every damn day until the day she died. It was stolen.”

I swallowed, my throat dry.

He didn’t ask. Didn’t have to. “You want me to make you a similar one,” I said slowly.

He nodded once. A single, restrained movement. But everything about it felt bare.

I hesitated.

This wasn’t business. It wasn’t about favors or manipulation or survival.

It was too personal.

My hands froze over the beads. I shook my head.

“I can’t.” I breathed.

His jaw ticked. But he didn’t snap. Didn’t lash out or throw ice at me. He just looked at me.

And fuck, that was worse.

That look, stripped of armor, stripped of violence, felt like it reached inside me and scraped across everything I was trying to bury.

Guilt. Grief.

The dangerous echo of shared loneliness.

“I’ll think about it,” I whispered.

He didn’t say a word.

But he dipped his head, just barely. Understanding. Or maybe surrendering. And that nearly broke me more than rage ever could.

Three nights later

I sat curled on the window seat in my room, the velvet cushions cold against my bare thighs. Outside, the snow glittered silver under the full moon, too still, too quiet.

I hated it. The estate had fallen into a silence that suffocated. No guards stomping past my door. No Misha.

Just stillness. And the weight of fear, guilt, and the way I still thought about his hands on me, even when I hated myself for it.

The burner phone buzzed once beneath my pillow. I’d kept the burner phone hidden since the day a maid pressed it into my palm without a word.