Page 44 of The Cruel Heir

My breath caught. I turned sharply, my heart thudding against my ribs, as Chadwick Worthington strode toward us, his smirk lazy and knowing. "Missed me, baby?"

Sterling shifted beside me, his posture deceptively relaxed, but there was a dangerous glint in his eyes. Chadwick’s smirkwidened as he reached a hand out, as if he might tuck a strand of hair behind my ear or touch my waist the way he used to.

Without a word, Sterling stepped in. He caught Chadwick’s wrist mid-air, stopping it inches from my arm. His grip was precise, twisting just enough to make Chadwick flinch, not enough to draw attention.

Controlled. Calculated. Lethal, without breaking a sweat.

My breath caught. I should’ve been scared. But I wasn’t.

Chadwick’s smirk twitched. “Easy, man,” he muttered. “Just catching up with an old friend.”

Sterling didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink.

“If you ever reach for her again,” he said, voice low, steady, deadly, “I’ll remind you who she belongs to. And it won’t be with words.”

The silence that followed wasn’t empty, it was dangerous. Heavy.

Chadwick froze, the color draining from his face, like someone had sucked the oxygen out of him. He tried to swallow but couldn’t. Sterling just stared, all that power coiled tight beneath his skin, radiating like heat off blacktop in the middle of July.

Then, Sterling released him, not with violence, but with intent.

Chadwick stumbled back anyway, catching himself on the wall, hands curling at his sides like he didn’t know what to do with them. He didn’t say another word. Didn’t even look at me again.

He wouldn’t dare. Not with Sterling standing between us, like a living wall.

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.

Because the part of me that had frozen under Chadwick’s weight?

Itmeltedunder Sterling’s.

I hated it. Hated how my body betrayed me.

How the sight of Sterling’s broad back, blocking Chadwick, felt like a shield.

Like safety.

Like possession.

My fingers trembled at my sides, tingling with something I couldn’t name. Not quite fear. Not quite want. But both, tangled. Sharp and hot and shameful.

Run.

My instincts screamed it. But my feet didn’t move.

Sterling turned to face me slowly, body shifting just enough to fill my view. Still calm. Still quiet. But everything in him hummed with danger. With control.

Sterling didn’t say anything as we walked, his body half a step ahead of mine, his presence eclipsing everything in the corridor. The farther we got from Chadwick, the more I felt the tightness easing in my chest. Like I could finally breathe, but I didn’t want to know what that made me.

At the end of the hall, just outside the arts building, he stopped.

Turned.

Waited.

I didn’t realize my hands had balled into fists, until I felt my nails scratching skin. I forced my shoulders up, chin tilted like I still had pride.

“I wasn’t going to let him touch me,” I muttered. “If that’s what you think.”