Chapter 194: Caught in the Act

The restroom was public only in name.

It was nothing like the cracked, damp facilities in parks or roadside rest stops. Westbridge kept even its auxiliary buildings immaculate. The counters were spotless, the mirrors were polished, and the air held a faint clean scent, something pale and expensive enough to feel intentional rather than sprayed on. That was the only reason Elias and Yvonne could have played this game here at all.

No one flirted in a place that smelled like rot and disinfectant fighting a losing battle. Desire was stubborn, but it was not that stubborn.

At that moment, though, the effect was the same.

The sound outside cut through the heat between them and put out whatever had been burning in Yvonne’s chest.

She did not move at once. Her expression barely changed. She only stilled, listening past Elias, past the stall door, past the lingering sound of their breathing.

Heels.

Measured. Sharp. Expensive enough to make each step sound deliberate against the floor.

Yvonne’s eyes shifted.

How many students at Westbridge wore heels like that on a campus night? Even during an anniversary gala, most of them chose dress shoes, loafers, flats, or polished boots. Faculty could wear heels, certainly, but most would not cross the building in stilettos loud enough to announce themselves from the entrance. Administrators had reasons to look formal, but no reason to stalk a restroom like they owned the air inside it.

The answer was not difficult.

Serena Blackwood.

Yvonne had no real connection with her. They had only exchanged one polite look in the auditorium, the kind of civil acknowledgment powerful women gave one another when neither needed an introduction. Even that had been enough.

Serena was strong. That much was obvious.

More than strong, she was used to possession. Authority sat on her the way a tailored coat sat on someone born into rooms where people stepped aside before being asked.

Why would the CEO of Blackwood Group leave the auditorium in the middle of the program and come all the way here?

Yvonne’s gaze returned to Elias.

The answer was standing in front of her, his back against the stall wall, his mouth bruised at the corners, his throat flushed where her tie had pressed.

She drew the tie away from his neck.

Elias’s skin marked too easily. The faintest pressure left color behind, and this had been far more than faint. A red band had already risen across his throat. The corners of his mouth were worse, abraded and vivid enough to make the imagination do the rest.

Even Yvonne, who had caused it, looked at the marks for half a second too long.

Then the voice outside snapped her attention back.

"Come out."

The words were cold enough to bite.

Yvonne no longer had to guess.

It was Serena.

Elias smiled at her.

The red at the corners of his mouth moved with the curve of his lips, turning the marks into something almost like a wound cut open by pleasure. There was a disturbing prettiness to it, the kind that made danger look decorative until it was already too close.

His lips moved without sound.

Ex-girlfriend.

Yvonne looked at him through her gold-rimmed glasses.

Her own mouth moved just as silently.

Is she here to catch you cheating?

Elias’s smile brightened at once. His eyes bent into two wicked crescents.

So Yvonne Quinn could be funny too.

He shook his head, then mouthed back slowly, making sure she could read every word.

I said ex-girlfriend. So it doesn’t count.

Then he lifted one long finger and hooked the tip around the tie still stretched between Yvonne’s hands.

He did not use much force.

He did not have to.

The gesture was light, almost lazy, but the effect was clear. He drew the tie, and Yvonne’s hands with it, back toward his face. From below, he looked up at her with eyes that had gone obedient and clean. The posture was almost worshipful. A willing captive. A servant kneeling without having been ordered to kneel. A boy offering himself again even while another woman stood outside demanding entry.

He did not speak.

The invitation sat plainly in his gaze.

Yvonne did not answer it.

She stood over him without bending, cool and unreadable, like a god looking down at a sacrifice she had not decided whether to accept. Whether Serena’s presence outside had cooled her, or whether Elias’s current act simply failed to move her, he could not tell.

He did not mind either way.

Elias parted his lips and caught the tie between his sharp little canines.

His teeth closed carefully around the fabric.

The movement made him look like a dog stealing something from its owner, playful and infuriating. If he ruined it, if he tore it, if he dragged it away and looked up afterward with those eyes, most people would forgive him before they finished getting angry.

Yvonne tugged the tie once.

Elias did not let go.

Her lips parted. "Release it."

He kept the tie between his teeth.

Yvonne raised her hand to his face.

Her thumb and middle finger settled at the corners of his mouth, exactly over the red marks she had left there. Her pressure was precise. Not wild. Not careless. She knew exactly where to press, and how much force would make the jaw obey before pride could pretend otherwise.

Elias’s mouth opened.

The tie slipped free.

"Disobedient," Yvonne said.

That was her verdict on the small creature called Elias Kane.

Elias’s lower lip pushed out at once. His brows drew together, and the grievance on his face was so immediate it almost looked sincere. If he had a tail, it would have drooped.

Yvonne watched him.

She had almost decided to punish him properly when Elias seemed to sense it. His face stayed still, but his eyes lifted.

That look.

Yvonne recognized it.

It reminded her, without warning, of the way he had looked at her from below in her apartment. The sofa. His kneeling posture. His mouth. That same upward glance, needy and knowing, pretending obedience while turning obedience into another method of control.

The heat she had thought extinguished stirred again.

Her face did not betray it.

Then her palm warmed.

Elias turned his face within her grip and rubbed against her hand like a pet begging forgiveness. The movement was soft enough to be called innocent if she had not known him. Then, while she was watching, he dragged the tip of his tongue lightly across the center of her palm.

Yvonne released him as if touched by current.

She looked down at her hand.

A faint dampness gleamed against her skin.

The culprit stood there with a docile, pleading expression, as if asking to be forgiven. As if he had not just done it to provoke her. As if every small act of submission from him did not carry a hook underneath.

Yvonne’s heart slowed.

The heat inside her did not vanish. It changed shape.

She had seen this version of him before.

Not with her.

With the silver-haired girl in the auditorium.

On Giselle Frost’s lap, Elias had looked even weaker than this. Softer. Easier to break. Like some fragile vine that could only survive by wrapping itself around another person and letting them believe they were the one giving shelter.

Had he looked the same in Serena Blackwood’s arms?

Had he used this same face to take Serena apart?

Outside, Serena’s voice dropped lower.

"I don’t want to repeat myself," she said, each word tight with restraint. "Get out here."

Serena knew she had lost composure.

There was no honest way to deny it. Leaving the auditorium had already been a mistake. Coming here had been worse. Standing in a campus restroom, commanding someone to come out like a jealous lover in the middle of a scandal, was beneath her in every way that mattered.

And still, she stood there.

She did not know what had happened to her these past few days. After Elias left the Blackwood residence, the memories blurred in a way she despised. She worked. She took meetings. She read reports. She signed documents. She answered calls. Everything was normal on paper, and yet the hours had moved like something thick and colorless, difficult to cut through.

At night, she stopped sleeping.

Insomnia was not new to her. She had lost sleep before. Business pressure, hostile negotiations, expansion plans, emergencies at the company, all of those had kept her awake at one time or another. A sleepless night did not prove that Elias Kane had affected her.

She could have told herself that.

She did tell herself that.

It might even have worked if it had happened once.

It had not happened once.

Night after night, the room stayed dark, the clock kept changing, and Elias remained gone.

By the time Serena understood that his absence had taken root in her, the mistake had already become something ugly and difficult to repair.

Accepting Westbridge’s invitation was a concession. She would never call it that aloud, but she knew what it was. The university wanted an impressive alumna, a powerful guest, a polished Blackwood Group success story to stand onstage and make the anniversary gala look brighter.

Serena accepted because it gave her a reason to see him.

A respectable reason. A public reason. One with enough distance that her pride could survive it.

Elias should have understood.

He was clever enough to understand everything else.

Then she had seen him.

Not alone.

Not waiting.

Not even looking properly abandoned.

He was in Giselle Frost’s lap in the middle of the auditorium, wrapped in another woman’s arms, body tucked against her like he belonged there. His posture had been intimate, familiar, almost shamelessly sweet. From a distance, with the lights dimmed and the crowd around them pretending not to stare, they looked like lovers.