TORN BY ECSTASY BY Vail blackRose

chapter 7 7

Chapter Seven: Adrian

The day dragged on at the office, a blur of corporate meetings, endless decisions, and hollow conversations. I went through the motions, shaking hands, making calls, signing documents, all while one thought gnawed at the back of my mind—her.

I had canceled half my meetings just to get back to my house earlier than usual. The moment our eyes met in that auditorium, something inside me had shifted. It was as if she'd slipped into my mind, and I hadn't been able to shake the image of her since. The way she had sat there, so small, so innocent. So fragile.

She looked like she needed protection. But there was something else there too—an edge, a quiet confidence she wasn't fully aware of yet. She wasn't just a delicate flower. There was more to her. I knew it.

A wicked smile crept across my face as I pulled into the driveway and parked. The thought of her wanting protection... wanting someone to guide her, shield her, but also show her the thrill of life—that idea stirred something inside me. She didn't even know what she was doing to me.

I strode into the house, barely greeting the staff as I headed straight for my study. Once inside, I closed the door, the silence of the room enveloping me. My sanctuary. But not for peace. No, not today. I was after something else.

I walked over to my desk, flipping open my laptop. Not the standard one. This one was different, designed for more... specialized commands. There were perks to the kind of business my family ran—our reach extended further than most people could imagine.

The screen flickered to life, and I quickly typed in my credentials, the system giving me access to everything I needed. I leaned forward, fingers moving across the keys with ease as I pulled up the records of new students at Coleridge University. I started sifting through them, file after file, page after page. Each profile flashed before my eyes, but none of them mattered. Only one did.

An hour passed, but I didn't mind the wait. I was nothing if not patient. And then finally, there she was.

Her picture appeared on the screen, staring back at me. Zara.

The first thing I noticed was that she wasn't wearing the scarf. Her hair was exposed, tied up in a bun or something similar, but the exact length wasn't clear. She looked even more innocent in this picture, her eyes soft, unaware of the world around her. I couldn't stop staring.

Zara Asher.

I repeated her name aloud, tasting the sound of it on my lips. Zara. It suited her perfectly. It fit in my mouth like it had always belonged there.

My eyes flicked down to the rest of the information:

First-year student. Graduate program. Literature. Of course. What else would a bookworm like her study? The image of her buried in that novel earlier made sense now. She wasn't just hiding—books were her escape.

Karachi, Pakistan. Muslim.

Muslim? The word gave me pause. She didn't fit the image I had built up in my mind. Muslim. That meant there were rules, boundaries, things that were important to her, things that went deeper than I'd anticipated. But even that didn't put me off—it made me more curious.

I scrolled further.

Athlete scholarship. Volleyball captain of the Karachi region. Part of the university's house team.

That was where I stopped. Athlete? My brow furrowed as I reread the line. The girl I saw flinching at the slightest touch, hiding behind books, fragile and innocent—she was an athlete? A captain?