Page 96 of King of Ruin

Xavier couldn't erase the image from his mind no matter how hard he tried. Seeing another man standing so close to her... watching that man reach for her hand... watching Elise stare at him so affectionately... every second of it had lodged itself beneath his skin like a splinter he couldn't pull free.

Jealousy was an unfamiliar emotion for him.

He despised it.

Yet tonight it coursed through him with a force that refused to be ignored.

For as long as he had known Elise, her attention had always found him first. Whether she realized it or not, her eyes instinctively searched for him whenever they entered the same room. Her quiet concern, her gentle smiles, the patience she showed only him... he had grown so accustomed to them that somewhere along the way, he'd started believing they belonged only to him.

But lately...

Something had changed.

That man kept appearing around her.

Once could have been a coincidence.

Now it was becoming a pattern.

And with every encounter, the possessiveness Xavier had spent years keeping under perfect control became harder to restrain. He had told himself it was none of his business. He had buried the feeling beneath meetings, contracts, and endless work, convincing himself it would disappear if he ignored it long enough.

Instead, it had only grown stronger.

Tonight, watching another man touch her, whatever control he had left finally snapped.

"Why are you hiding him?"

His voice was quiet.

Elise's lashes fluttered, but she didn't answer.

Xavier let out a slow breath through his nose, his jaw hardening as he searched her face. Every second of her silence only confirmed the suspicion that had been gnawing at him for days.

"What the hell is going on?" he demanded, his brows drawing together. "Are you hiding something from me?"

She opened her mouth, only for him to cut her off before a single word could leave her lips.

"Who is he?"

His gaze never left hers.

"The man you were just with." His eyes narrowed. "He's the same one who came to meet you a few days ago, isn't he?"

The words came out sharper than he intended, edged with a jealousy he could no longer disguise.

His hand slid from her wrist to her forearm, his fingers tightening just enough to stop her from looking away.

"Who is he, Elise?"

That there had to be a reasonable explanation.

But every time that man appeared, every time he saw Elise with him, the uneasiness inside him grew until it became impossible to ignore.

Tonight had been the final straw.

Seeing another man take her hand...

Watching her smile at him...