UNWANTED FEELINGS
1035 Words
Zavian Blake didn’t get distracted.
He didn’t let feelings interfere with business.
Didn’t blur lines.
Didn’t lose control.
But tonight, long after he left Nylah’s apartment — after the pasta, the effortless sarcasm, her ridiculous comment about peanut butter — he was restless.
His penthouse, as modern and pristine as ever, suddenly felt cold. Big. Empty. Like a gallery that had been cleaned out but never filled with anything that meant something.
He poured himself a drink. Neat. No ice.
Still didn’t burn enough.
This was supposed to be simple.
Pretend to date her.
Put Alicia and the others in check.
Keep the campaign steady.
No one messes with what belongs to Zavian Blake — that was the entire point.
But now…
Now he could still hear Nylah laughing at some dumb joke she’d made.
Now he was thinking about the way she looked in a pair of faded jeans and no makeup — real, effortless, infuriatingly magnetic.
He ran a hand through his hair and swore under his breath.
This wasn’t how it worked.
He didn’t like people.
He used them. He mentored them. He hired them. He occasionally slept with them when it was convenient — but he didn’t crave them.
He didn’t wonder how their day had gone.
Or what they looked like when they were smiling at someone else.
Or who they used to be before the world taught them to fight.
He paced to the window. The city stretched below him like a living map of decisions, all precise, all built for power and control. The only chaos tonight… was inside him.
This can’t happen, he told himself.
Nylah Daniels was unpredictable. Emotional.
She made mistakes. She was flawed in ways he usually avoided.
But she was also brave. Sharp.
She stood up to him like no one else did. She made him laugh when he didn’t mean to.
And worst of all—she made him feel.
Zavian gripped the edge of the marble counter, trying to ground himself.
This wasn’t love. Couldn’t be. He didn’t do love.
But he couldn’t deny it anymore: he wanted her.
Not just the way she looked at shoots or the way she melted under his rare touches.
He wanted her loyalty. Her attention. Her trust.
And that terrified him.
Because wanting something meant giving it power.
And Zavian Blake never gave anything that kind of power over him.
Not after what his own father did to his mother. Not after watching a woman beg a man who didn’t love her to stay. Not after years of promising himself that he would be the one to leave first — before anyone got the chance to break him.
So why the hell did it feel like Nylah Daniels had already slipped past his defences?
And worse…
Why wasn’t he trying harder to stop her?
***
Nylah woke up the next morning tangled in the sheets, her head buried beneath the pillow, silently praying the night before was a bad dream.
It wasn’t.
She had dinner with her family.
With Zavian Blake.
She groaned and flipped over, staring at the ceiling. The white paint suddenly felt like a spotlight on all her embarrassing choices.
She had lied.
He had shown up.
With flowers for her mother and whiskey for her dad like some perfectly polished fantasy.
And he’d played his part flawlessly.
Now her mom was beaming like she’d won the lotto, and her dad had nodded in approval for the first time in years.
Everything was spiralling… and somehow it was working.
But Nylah couldn’t shake the tight twist in her chest that had started when she opened the front door and saw him standing there. Not Zavian the billionaire. Not Zavian the ruthless strategist.
Zavian the man who shouldn’t have looked that good on her porch.
She dragged herself out of bed and shuffled into the kitchen for coffee, her head still foggy.
The worst part?
It wasn’t the lie. It wasn’t the attention. It wasn’t even the risk of this whole thing blowing up in her face.
It was how she felt the moment his eyes met hers at the door — sharp and annoyed, yes, but also… present.
She had missed him.
That was the part she hated most.
She had missed the way his jaw tightened when he was irritated. The way he called her out with that cool arrogance like he owned every room he walked into. The way his voice dipped low when he was serious — and how it sent traitorous shivers down her spine.
She didn’t want to miss him.
She wasn’t supposed to miss a man who treated this fake relationship like a business deal.
But ever since the shoot he showed up to — when he adjusted her necklace with fingers that lingered too long, when he whispered something that wasn’t even seductive but still made her knees soft — something had shifted.
She’d started looking for him.
And now that he hadn’t shown up in days…
She felt it.
Her phone buzzed with group texts from the campaign team. Gossip, speculation, thinly veiled questions about her and the boss.
She hated how they said “boss’s girl” like it was an insult.
She was more than this campaign.
More than a fake title attached to Zavian Blake.
More than some girl he pretended to care about to keep a business deal clean.
But as she sat at the kitchen counter, coffee untouched, scrolling through the cruel little comments in silence… she couldn’t lie to herself anymore.
She wanted him to care.
Not just in public.
Not just for appearances.
She wanted to know what it felt like to be wanted for real by a man like him.
And that scared her more than any of Alicia’s schemes.
Because Zavian Blake didn’t do real.
He did control.
He did power.
And whatever this was — this confusing, magnetic, emotionally dangerous thing between them — it would never end the way she secretly wished it could.
So Nylah took a deep breath, pulled herself together, and got dressed for the day.
If he wasn’t going to call, she’d stop waiting.
At least… she’d try.
- Writer
