Campus King | 18+

Chapter Twenty-Two

Hannah

I don't know what possessed me to go up to his apartment with him.

Maybe curiosity finally got the best of me; I always did think it led to more problems. But dammit, I really wanted to know what his place looked like.

While we were parking, he explained that there were seven floors but only five apartments in the building, each on its own floor. The bottom two were reserved for the reception, the fitness center, and the indoor pool while everything above it was private accommodation. The outside was no less impressive with its well-manicured gardens and a lot of tall, dense white firs, along with some other smaller native trees and plants. High walls surrounded the property, and security guards manned the entrance. It was all just so... private. And serene. A huge difference from the chaos on campus.

I don't know why that surprised me, but it did. Though, I suppose it made sense. You would probably be desperate to hold onto some semblance of peace when you're a public figure like him. I just knew that peace wasn't cheap.

My gaze found his back as he led me into the building, and my attention immediately fixated on his back muscles, watching them move in a mesmerizing dance under his shirt. It wasn't even a surprising revelation when I realized that all that anger and fear from before was gone. Just a few minutes in his presence and he had me forgetting that I was supposed to be wary of him.

Once, I'd asked myself why people gravitated to him, but now that question terrified me. Because I knew the answer. It was simple really.

He was just so fucking bright.

There was a lone man at the reception desk, and he smiled in greeting as soon as he saw Tristan. "Good afterno—" He stopped when he noticed me, his smile morphing into a look of surprise as he stared at me.

Tristan simply gave him a polite smile in turn and offered neither of us an explanation as he led me towards the elevator. I turned to look back as he pressed the button to take us to the seventh floor, finding the man still staring at me.

"Why is he looking at me like that?" I whispered, a little perturbed by the look on the man's face

The doors opened, and Tristan indicated that I should get in first. "Looking at you like what?"

I stepped in and turned to the front to face him, giving him a no-nonsense look. "Don't play dumb with me. He's staring at me like I'm the first woman he's ever seen. Do I have something on my face, and you're just not telling me because you think it's funny?"

He laughed and stepped behind me. "Your face is just as beautiful as the day I first saw you — maybe that's why Carlos is staring. He can't help himself."

The doors slid shut. "You did not think I was pretty when we first met. We hated each other."

"Did we?" In the mirrored doors, I could see him leaning against the metal railing behind us, arms folded as he watched me.