The Heiress He Underestimated novel Chapter 10

She nodded, too stunned to speak. He sat down, keeping a respectful distance. For a few minutes, they sat in silence, watching a group of children chase pigeons.

“You left the lab in a hurry,” he said finally, his voice quiet.

“I had a… family call,” she replied, the words tasting bitter.

“Ah.” He didn’t press further. He simply sat there, a solid, quiet presence beside her. It was unnerving. And strangely comforting.

“I have to go away this weekend,” she found herself saying, the words tumbling out before she could stop them. “With him. On his yacht.”

She felt him go very still beside her. The air around them seemed to grow colder.

“I see,” he said, his voice low and carefully controlled. “Is that wise?”

“It’s necessary. To keep up the act. If I cancel, he’ll get suspicious. And my father…” she trailed off, shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter. I can handle it.”

“Can you?” he asked, and he turned his head to look at her. His gray eyes were intense, searching hers. “Handling a business rival is one thing. Handling a narcissist with a personal vendetta on his own territory, isolated from help, is another.”

His concern, so plainly stated, threw her off balance. No one had ever spoken to her like this. Not as a pawn, not as an asset, but as a person who might actually be in danger.

“I’ve been handling difficult situations my whole life,” she said, her voice tighter than she intended.

“I know,” he said softly. “But you shouldn’t have to. Not alone.”

The simple truth of that statement hit her with a physical force. It echoed the very thought she’d had in his penthouse. For so long, her strength had been born from solitude, from the knowledge that she was the only one she could rely on. To have someone, especially him, acknowledge that burden was… disarming.

And then he was gone, disappearing into the flow of pedestrians, leaving her sitting on the bench with a cooling coffee and a heart that was beating far too fast.

She looked down at her phone, her mind a whirlwind. She opened her contacts and, after a moment’s hesitation, created a new entry.

Drakonius.

She stared at the name for a long time. He was a mystery, a complication she didn’t need. But as the sun began to set, casting long shadows across the park, she realized with a startling clarity that the thought of his phone number in her contacts, that simple line of connection, made the prospect of the weekend feel a little less terrifying.

She was not going out to that yacht alone. She was carrying a secret lifeline. And for the first time in a very, very long time, Elyrian Nethys did not feel entirely alone.