Kayden Blackwood had always believed emotions were liabilities.
They blurred judgment. Softened resolve. Created cracks enemies could crawl through. He had built his life on precision, on numbers, timing, leverage. Feelings had never been part of the equation.
Until Karen.
The realization struck him late one night, alone in his penthouse, standing before a wall of windows that reflected a man he barely recognized. The city lights shimmered like distant stars, but instead of calm, they stirred unrest in his chest.
This is not normal, he told himself.
He had replayed the day too many times, the way she had stood beside him in the boardroom, steady and assured; the way her voice had softened when she spoke his name; the way her fingers had brushed his beard, wiping away a careless crumb as though she had done it a hundred times before.
The memory burned.
He closed his eyes, but it only made it worse.
Flashback**
The restaurant. Candlelight dancing between them. Karen laughing softly at something he said. An actual laugh, unguarded, warm. He remembered how it had startled him, how his body had gone still, as though laughter were a language he had forgotten how to understand.
End of flashback**
Kayden exhaled sharply.
"When did you start noticing her smile?" he asked the empty room.
"When did silence with her become… comfortable?"
There was no answer. Only the weight of truth pressing in.
This wasn't attraction alone. Attraction was simple. Manageable.
This was something else.
Something that made him pause before speaking. Something that made him want to explain himself, an impulse so foreign it terrified him.
The feeling of love, he thought bitterly. Or the beginning of it.
"No," he said aloud. "That's not possible."
Love had destroyed his father. Had hollowed men stronger than him. Had no place in a life like his.
And yet, his mind betrayed him again.
**Flashback**
Karen staying late, sleeves rolled up, hair slightly loose as she worked through reports. He had stepped out of his office to tell her to go homebut stopped when he saw the look of quiet focus on her face.
"How long have you been here?" he had asked.
She had raised her head from her work and given him a little smile barely noticeable but he did notice. "Long enough to want coffee. But not long enough to give up."
Something had shifted then. Something deep.
End flashback.
Kayden turned away from the windows, jaw clenched.
"This ends now," he said.
The next morning, he arrived at the office earlier than usual.
Karen was already there.
"Good morning, Mr. Blackwood," she said, standing instinctively.
He nodded curtly and walked past her without stopping.
The coldness was immediate. Sharp. Deliberate.
Karen frowned slightly, but said nothing.
Maybe he's just busy, she told herself.
But the pattern repeated.
Meetings she always attended, he canceled her presence. Briefings she prepared, he delegated to others. When she approached his office, he would step out and leave. When she entered a room, he would find an excuse to exit.
Each avoidance felt like a quiet slap.
Kayden felt every one of them too.
"This is necessary" he told himself as he sat in a boardroom without her, listening to a presentation that felt wrong without her input.
Distance will kill this feeling.
Instead, it fed it.
Her absence echoed louder than her presence ever had.
Queen noticed.
She noticed the way Kayden's eyes flicked to Karen's desk, then away. The way his jaw tightened when Karen laughed softly with another colleague. The way he took the long route down the hall just to avoid crossing paths with her.
Queen had worked here long enough to recognize patterns.
And this one was new.
She cornered Karen gently near the elevators. "Did you do something to upset him?"
Karen blinked. "No. At least… not that I know of."
Queen studied her face. "He doesn't ignore people unless they matter."
Karen's heart sank.
Then why does this hurt so much? she wondered.
Kayden locked himself in his office that evening, the glass blinds drawn.
He loosened his tie, paced, stopped, then paced again.
This is ridiculous, he thought. You're acting like a teenager.
But his chest ached with an unfamiliar heaviness.
He sat at his desk and stared at nothing.
What do you want from her? he demanded of himself.
The answer came too easily.
Peace.
The realization stunned him.
Karen brought peace into rooms that had always been battlefields. She softened edges without dulling them. She didn't challenge his authority, but she challenged his isolation.
And that was unforgivable.
"You don't get peace," he whispered to his reflection in the dark glass. "You get survival."
His father's voice echoed in memory.
"Love makes men careless", Kayden.
"Nofeelings, No love" has always been his mantra.
He remembered the night his father had trusted the wrong person. Remembered the blood, the betrayal, the way love had been used as a weapon.
Never again.
Kayden straightened, resolve hardening.
The next day, the distance became ice.
"Good morning," Karen said carefully.
"Send the files to legal," Kayden replied without looking at her.
No greeting. No acknowledgment.
She stood frozen for a second, then nodded. "Yes, sir."
Her voice was steady. But her hands trembled when she turned away.
Kayden felt it like a blow.
Don't turn around, he ordered himself.
Don't soften now.
He didn't.
And it cost him more than he expected.
By the end of the week, the office buzzed with speculation.
"Did she mess up?"
"No, he's just… colder."
"He's avoiding her."
Queen listened in silence.
You're running, she thought, watching Kayden retreat down the hallway. And kings don't run unless they're afraid.
Late that night, Kayden sat alone again, exhaustion clinging to him.
He pulled open a drawer he hadn't touched in years.
Inside lay an old photograph, his parents, younger, smiling. In love.
He stared at it for a long time.
"Look what it did to you," he murmured.
Then, quieteralmost brokenhewhispered "Why do I still want it?"
The answer frightened him enough to close the drawer.
To retreat further.
To build the walls higher.
Because Kayden Blackwood had finally felt something real.
And the first thing he did, true to everything he had ever believedin, he ran from it.