The summer heat clung to my skin like temptation—thick, heavy, and impossible to ignore. I stood in the hallway of Markus Blackwell’s estate, my suitcase by my feet, my heart fluttering with something far more dangerous than nerves. I hadn’t seen him in over a year. Not since he sent me off to boarding school, far away from everything I knew, including him.
Now I was back. Eighteen. Legal. Changed.
“Lana,” he said, his deep voice wrapping around me like silk and gravel. He stood in the doorway of his study, dressed in one of his usual crisp black shirts, sleeves rolled up just enough to show his forearms—taut, tanned, veined.
God, he was still beautiful.
He looked me over slowly, as if unsure what he was seeing. As if I had grown into something that made him uncomfortable. Something th
