The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Zara

I don’t mean to keep looking at him. That would imply a decision, a moment where I can choose to turn away, to let the room swallow him back into its usual rhythm. To pretend that whatever tilted when he walked through that door hasn’t settled somewhere under my skin.

But I don’t choose anything. Not really.

Because the second I see him before I even know what I’m looking at, something in me has already leaned in, already locked on. Already recognized him in that dangerous, instinctive way the body knows certain things before the brain has language for them.

Like hunger. Like gravity. Like trouble.

And dear sweet God, he looks like all kinds of trouble.

Tall enough to command attention without demanding it, broad shoulders cutting through the dim clubhouse like something carved out of shadow and muscle, blond hair falling carelessly across his forehead in a way that should soften him, but somehow only makes him more dangerous. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, revealing large tattooed forearms and ink crawling over his hands, dark against tan skin, the kind of tattoos that look earned rather than decorative.

But it’s his face that hits hardest.

Not because he’s gorgeous – though he is, devastatingly so – but because there’s something restrained about him, and that feels infinitely more seductive than charm ever could. Cheekbones so sharp they could draw blood, a mouth that looks almost like a painting in its perfection, sensual enough to make my pulse shift, and cruel enough to suggest he’s fully aware of the effect it has on people.

And those goddamn eyes.

Storm-cloud gray. Winter-ocean gray. Wild-wolf gray. The kind of eyes that look like they could hold secrets without ever once feeling guilty about it.

“Zara. Hey, Zara,”

Jade’s voice brushes the edge of my awareness, amused and knowing in a way that tells me she’s been watching this happen for longer than I realized.

I don’t look at her. I can’t. Not while his attention is still fixed on me with that terrifying steadiness, not while something inside me refuses to be the first to look away.

1.3

Chapter 18

“Careful,” she murmurs. “You’re staring.”

“I’m not,” I say automatically.

A soft laugh leaves her. “You totally are.”

Maybe I am…. but he is too.

Claim

That’s the part that matters, because his gaze doesn’t shift past me after a second or two the way most men’s would. He doesn’t catalogue me politely and move on. No, he stays there with me, holding the moment open between us.

There’s no smile on his face, no obvious flirtation, nothing easy enough to dismiss. Just attention, unapologetic attention that slides over me slowly enough to make heat rise beneath my skin before I can stop it.

And suddenly I’m hyperaware of everything.

The pulse beating hard in my throat. The way my jeans suddenly feel too tight on my thighs. The whiskey warming my bloodstream. The fact that I haven’t been looked at like this in a very long time, not by anyone, and most certainly not by a man who seems capable of unraveling someone quietly.

I should look away. I know that. This is exactly the kind of attraction that sensible women avoid. The fast kind, the dangerous kind, the kind that arrives fully formed before logic can catch up and remind you how badly these things usually end.

Then, just as deliberately as it landed, the moment breaks. Not abruptly, not awkwardly. Just … finished. As though whatever needed to be acknowledged has been.

And he looks away, taking all the heat and chill of his gaze with him.

I watch him move through the room toward my father, accepting a beer from someone at the bar without breaking his stride, and conversation shifts around him almost instinctively. Men nod as he passes, others step aside without seeming aware they’re doing it.

I exhale slowly, only then realizing that I’d been holding my breath.

“Well, Jade says softly beside me. “That’s new.”

I drag my eyes from his broad back long enough to glance at her. “What is?”

“That look on your face.”

I frown slightly. “I don’t have a look.”

She outright grins now. “Oh, honey. You really do.”

23

Heat flickers annoyingly through my chest. Not embarassment exactly, something closer to

exposure, because I know what she saw KOTKOM WEBsn’t subtle. And the worst part is that I’m

not entirely sure I wanted to the

“Don’t start,” I warm lighty

“I’m definitely starting. Are you kidding me?”

I shake my head, trying unsuccessfully to pull myself back into something resembling composure. “So who is he

Jade follows my gaze toward the far end of the room, where the now stands beside Cobra, both of them speaking quietly, their attention fixed on each other while the rest of the clubhouse seems to move carefully around them.

“Locke Tanner,” she says.

Locke.

The name settles into me slowly, like hard liquor poured meat over ice: dark, smooth, burning all the way down. It feels dangerous in my mouth before I ever even say it out loud, the kind of name that belongs to locked doors, bad decisions, and men that women regret too late.

My eyes drift back to him instinctively, to the broad lime of his shoulders, the tattooed hands wrapped loosely around his beer. Heat blooms in my p***y so suddenly it almost hurts.

Because deep down, beneath every rational thought still trying to save me from myself, I realize something with dizzying clarity:

If that man ever tries to touch me, I will absolutely unequivocally let him. More than that?

I’ll fucking beg him.

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