Sebastian Blake –
There was something tragic about cafés.
They reeked of warmth. Of small talk. Of people who had the luxury to waste time on foam art and sugar cubes. I hated them. But today I had a meeting. And when Blake Enterprises needed to fake normalcy, I played along.
Corner table. Black coffee. No cream. No sugar. No emotion.
I was reading through intel—some low-level rat in the Romano gang was flipping—when the door chimed.
And then I saw her.
She wasn't supposed to matter. Just another girl with cheap lip gloss and messy hair. Laughing too loudly. Hugging her friend like the world was ending. She dropped her phone twice in five minutes and apologized to the waiter three times. Her laugh echoed through the walls like she'd never been hurt a day in her life.
She was wearing a pink cardigan.
She had no idea what kind of wolves roamed the city.
And yet, for some goddamn reason, I couldn't look away.
She was pouring sugar into her friend's drink like a child—no elegance, no grace, no strategy. Just sugar and sunshine and chaos. She tilted her head, brushed that curtain of black hair behind one ear, and smiled at something her friend said—so full of life I almost hated it.
And then she looked at me.
One second. No longer.
Wide eyes. Deep black. Curious. Soft.
And then—God help me—she smiled.
Not the kind of smile girls give when they want something. Not polite. Not practiced.
It was the softest smile I'd ever seen.
No reason. No warning. Just… warmth. Like she had a little too much of it and didn't mind giving some away.
She didn't know who I was.
She didn't know what I'd done.
And still, she smiled like I was someone worth smiling at.
She turned back to her friends, all pink and gold and idiotic joy.
I was still frozen, the coffee turning bitter in my mouth.
And then chaos struck.
She got up to leave—waved too hard, tripped over absolutely nothing, and stumbled straight toward my table.
I didn't move. Didn't blink. But the tray in her hand went flying, her balance went with it, and in the next second—
Her hand smacked my table.
Her elbow landed in my coffee.
And her hair—Goddamn it—got caught in my watch.
Long, thick, stupidly soft black strands tangled around the sharp edge of my Cartier.
"—OHMYGOD I'm SO sorry!" she gasped, already trying to pull away without yanking her entire scalp off. "Oh no, I ruined your—wait—are you okay? Did the coffee—did it spill? I didn't burn you, right? You don't look burned. But like, you could be burned. You look—um—very cool but in a dangerous, mafia-king-who-could-murder-me kind of way, but also like someone who drinks really bitter coffee so maybe you're just used to pain—wait, why am I talking?!"
I raised a single brow.
She yelped. "Oh God, please don't sue me. Or kill me. Or, like, glare at me. I bruise easily."
I almost laughed.
Almost.
She tugged her hair again and winced. "Um. I think I'm stuck to you. Like literally. I think my hair is dating your watch now."
Ridiculous.
Infuriating.
She looked at me with those giant eyes again—dark, embarrassed, unafraid—and smiled. "Could you, maybe… untangle me? Please? Unless you want to keep me, I mean—ha!—not that I'm, like, sellable. I mean, unless you're into clumsy law students with no spatial awareness and trauma hair—" She paused. "You're glaring again."
I didn't realize I'd moved until my fingers were already in her hair, slow and controlled, unwinding it from the metal.
She didn't flinch.
Most people do when I touch them.
She just… watched me.
With too much trust for someone who should know better.
"There," I said quietly. "You're free."
"Thanks," she said, breathless. "Sorry again. I'll just… go before I destroy your whole life."
She turned to run off, still flustered and smiling, and for a single second—before I let her go—I whispered her face into memory.
The girl who smiled at me like I wasn't ice.
The girl who got tangled in my world for three minutes and left without knowing what she'd done.