The moment I step inside my apartment, I know something’s wrong.
Not wrong in the catastrophic sense—no broken glass, no overturned furniture. Everything looks exactly as I left it. Shoes by the door. My jacket on the hook. The faint citrus scent of the candle I forgot to blow out this morning.
But the air…
the air feels occupied.
Like someone breathed too deeply in here.
Like someone is still breathing.
I don’t see him at first. The shadows stretch long across the living room, the city lights leaking through the floor-to-ceiling windows just enough to blur the edges of everything.
I close the door behind me quietly, almost instinctively, as if making noise might disturb something I shouldn’t disturb.
And then I see him.
Sitting on my couch.
Back straight. One arm resting on the sofa’s edge. The other hand loosely clasping what looks like a glass of water he probably got from my kitchen like he lives here.
Julian.
He doesn’t move when I spot him.
He doesn’t stand or speak.
He just looks at me.
Like he’s been waiting.
Like this is exactly where he planned to be.
Like my apartment—my space—isn’t mine tonight.
A cold ripple runs through me. And then a hot one. Because of course he’s here. Of course he decides when conversations happen. Of course he breaks silence on his terms.
“Julian.” My voice is thin, a piece of paper held in the wind. “What are you doing here?”
He sets the glass down on the coffee table with a soft click, the sound unbearably calm.
“I wanted to talk to you,” he says. His tone is low, steady—too steady. “And you haven’t exactly been answering your phone.”
“I needed space.” I toe off my shoes, heartbeat uneven. “That’s allowed.”
He nods once, like he’s humoring me.
Like he’s letting me believe that.
“That’s why I’m here,” he says. “To talk. Not to fight.”
I laugh, a hollow sound that doesn’t match anything inside me. “You can’t break into my place and say you’re respecting my need for space.”
His jaw flexes. Just barely. But I see it.
“I didn’t break in,” he replies. “You gave me a key.”
“And I asked for it back.”
“You didn’t actually take it.” His eyes flicker over me—tired clothes, stiff shoulders, the exhaustion I’m too worn out to hide. “If you truly didn’t want me here, you would’ve asked.”
That stings, not because he’s wrong, but because he knows exactly which truths burn the most.
I take a breath, stepping further into the room but keeping the coffee table between us like a barrier.
“This isn’t okay,” I whisper. “You don’t get to wait in my home like this. You don’t get to decide when we talk.”
His gaze darkens, but not with anger—more like frustration mixed with something raw.
“Sloan, the last few days—” He cuts himself off, running a hand through his hair. “You’ve been shutting me out.”
“Because I’m overwhelmed,” I bite out. “Because things are messy and confusing and you’re not helping—”
“I’m trying.”
The words burst out of him, sharp and unfiltered.
It shocks both of us.
He stands—not quickly, but with the controlled precision he uses when he's angry but trying not to show it.
“You think I don’t care?” he asks, voice quieter now. “You think I don’t notice when you pull away? When you look like you’re slipping out of reach?”
His eyes lock onto mine, unblinking.
“I’m here because I care, Sloan.”
The room goes unbearably still.
His presence fills the apartment—too large, too composed, too intense for the soft, cluttered space that belongs to me. And I hate that a part of me responds to that intensity, that it twists something deep inside me.
“I don’t want you here right now,” I say softly, honestly. “But I also don’t want you to leave angry.”
He inhales slowly. Then he steps around the couch, closer—close enough that I can feel the heat of him.
“I’m not angry at you,” he murmurs. “I’m afraid of losing you.”
My breath catches in my throat.
Julian Mercer, who negotiates billion-dollar deals without blinking, looks like he’s standing on the edge of something fragile.
And maybe that’s why it hurts even more.
Because I don’t know where this version of him ends,
and where the controlling, overpowering version begins.
“I’m tired,” I say. It’s all I can manage.
His expression softens—barely.
“Then let me stay,” he whispers. “Just for tonight. I won’t touch you. I won’t push. I just… want to be near you.”
My heart twists painfully.
Because this—
this tender version of him—
is always what drags me back in.
Always what complicates every boundary I try to draw.
And he knows it.
He always knows.
But the worst part?
So do I.