But something about the way he was looking at me made me feel seen. Not like a mess. Not like a burden. Like something worth pursuing.
And that scared me more than the dark ever could.
Chapter Four
Lorenzo
She had said it wasn’t any of my business.
And she was right. Technically. Legally. In every way that mattered to a normal man.
Normal men didn’t watch a woman at a bar for twenty minutes, cataloging every tremor of her fingers, every hitch of her breath. Normal men didn’t memorize the curve of her spine through a cheap hoodie, didn’t feel the air leave their lungs when she finally stood up to leave.
Normal men didn’t follow women out into the cold.
But I did.
Because I wasn’t normal.
I’d never been normal.
Something in me got broken early on.
I knew I didn’t know her. But this feeling in my gut—this violent, possessive pull—it didn’t care about logic. It didn’t care that I’d never spoken to her before tonight. It only cared that she was hurting, and that aggravated me.
And now, standing just three feet away from her, I was able to truly look at her. Her dark hair was tangled, wind-tossed, falling in curls around a face still blotchy from crying. She had curves beneath that baggy hoodie, soft and round in ways that made my mouth water.
She was a disaster.
She was beautiful.
I felt my legs move without thought. My hand came up—I didn’t plan it, didn’t consider it—and the pad of my thumb brushes across her cheekbone, catching a stray tear. Her skin was soft beneath my calloused fingers.
She immediately flinched and stepped back.
“What—”
I didn’t let her finish. “Zara, you’re crying.”
My voice came out rough. The fact that she was crying with me standing right there felt like an insult. She should have known I’d fix it, I’d fix everything.
My fingers flexed at my side, itching to touch her again.
She looked up at me, confusion warring with wariness in those brown eyes. “Who are you? How do you know my name?”
I pulled a crumpled receipt from my pocket—the one the bartender had handed me after I’d watched her scribble on it. “You signed for your drink. Zara.”
Recognition flickers across her face. Then something harder. Guarded.
“You stole my receipt?”
“My name is Lorenzo Falcone,” Holding out my hand, as if it should mean something. Usually, it did. The Falcone name opened doors, closed deals, and made people nervous. But she just stared at me as if I were speaking a foreign language.
“I don’t—” She shook her head, ignoring my outstretched hand. “I don’t care who you are. What do you want?”
I could have told her the truth.
I want to know everything. I want to take you somewhere warm. I want to find out who made you cry and make them regret ever being born.
