Page 5 of Dark Billionaire Stalker
It's strange, the way the body knows things the mind hasn't caught up to yet. The hair on the back of my neck stands up. My skin prickles. My hands go still among the petals.
Someone is watching me.
I look up.
And across the room, through the crowd of masked faces, I see him.
He's tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in a tuxedo that fits him like it was stitched onto his body. His mask is more elaborate than the others—a serpent in black and gold, covering the upper half of his face. I can't see his features, but I can feel his attention. It has weight. Texture. Like a hand pressing against my chest.
The guests flow around him like water around a stone. No one bumps into him, no one blocks his sightline to me. It's as though the crowd knows instinctively to give him space.
He's not just looking at me. He'sstudyingme. The way I might study a flower I've never seen before, cataloging its petals, its structure, its secrets.
Our eyes meet.
I should look away. Every instinct tells me to look away, to break whatever this connection is, to go back to my work and pretend I didn't notice. That's what normal people do when strangers stare at them. That's what smart people do.
I don't look away.
Neither does he.
The moment stretches, elastic and strange. The music fades to a distant hum—those wrong notes, those bent strings, suddenly muffled as though I'm hearing them through water. The masked guests blur at the edges of my vision until it's just him and me and the charged air between us.
I don't understand any of it. Why my heart is racing. Why my mouth has gone dry. Why some part of me wants to stand up and walk toward him even though everything about this feels dangerous.
Then someone touches his arm. A woman in a silver mask, her gown dripping with black pearls, claiming his attention. He turns away from me to greet her, and the spell breaks.
Sound rushes back. The discordant music, the murmur of voices, the clink of champagne glasses. The gala reassembles itself around me, and I'm just a florist on her knees, trembling for no reason she can name.
What the hell was that?
I force myself to focus. My hands are shaking slightly as I make a final adjustment to the arrangement, tucking a stray stem back into place. The dahlia petals are cool and soft against my fingers, familiar, grounding.
I need to leave. I should have left hours ago, before the guests arrived, before the atmosphere shifted from strangeto something else entirely. Ms. Schmidt was clear about the timeline: setup complete by seven, staff gone by eight. It's well past nine now, and I'm still here because of a broken vase and a last-minute request, and my own stupid perfectionism.
I gather my tools—wire cutters, ribbon, the small emergency kit I carry everywhere—and stand on legs that feel less steady than they should. The ballroom is beautiful. My arrangements are beautiful. I should feel proud.
Instead, I feel like prey that's wandered into the wrong forest.
I make my way toward the service corridor, keeping my head down, trying to be invisible. The guests don't notice me. I'm just the help, beneath their attention. That's fine. That's good. I don't want to be noticed.
But I can feel his gaze on my back as I leave the room. I don't turn around to confirm it.
The service corridor is quieter, the noise of the gala muffled by thick stone walls. I take a breath, then another. My heartbeat begins to slow.
Get a grip, Poppy. It was just a man looking at you. Men look at women. It doesn't mean anything.
But it didn't feel like just looking. It felt like being seen through. Like he could read every thought in my head, every secret I've never told anyone.
I shake off the feeling and start walking. The service entrance is at the end of this corridor, then left, then straight until I reach the door to the gravel lot where my van is parked. I've walked this route three times today. I know the way.
Except for the corridor branches, where I don't remember it branching. And the left turn leads to a staircase I've never seen. And suddenly nothing looks familiar.
I stop. Turn around. The corridor behind me looks different than it did thirty seconds ago.
That's impossible. Corridors don't change.
But this house—this estate—doesn't follow normal rules. I've felt it all day, the wrongness underneath the beauty. The way the sounds echo strangely. The way the staff move like they're following choreography that no one else can see. The serpents carved into every doorframe, watching with stone eyes.
