Yuvaan Grewaal.
The chair's back bit into my spine with all the subtlety of a corporate rejection letter—unyielding, unapologetic, and oddly ergonomic. Somewhere in the background, the wooden screech of chair legs against concrete stabbed the silence like a slow murder.
Real classy.
Clearly, I wasn't lounging on some sun-drenched rooftop in SoHo, sipping overpriced matcha and contemplating the fall of capitalism. No, darling—I was blindfolded, bound, and planted in what reeked of century-old mildew and budget hostility.
I was blindfolded—of course. And I swear, if I could rip this piece of budget cotton off my face, I'd throw it directly into a black hole, or at least down a very inconvenient sewer. Unfortunately, my wrists were tied behind me with what felt like a piece of fabric that had aspirations of being called a rope but hadn't made the team.
Seriously? Fabric? What was this—the Great Value version of kidnapping?
Oh, for the love of sangria. This was it, wasn't it? The surprise. The one I'd been "gently coerced" into with a lethal combo of my mom's sweet smiles, relentless persistence, and—you guessed it—her patented death glares that could turn granite into gravel. I should've known better. Actually, I did know better.
Note to self: If I survived this, she was going straight into the family group chat as officially untrustworthy, do not engage, liar-liar-pants-on-fire. Probably with a custom emoji and everything.
And my mouth was gagged shut with what I assumed was the same decorative scarf your least favorite aunt would give you for Christmas.
Where the hell am I?! My mind screamed while my actual lips gave the saddest "Ughhhh" known to humanity.
Silence.
Ugh. Classic.
The room was empty. Eerily so. No footsteps. No breathing. No faint smell of Axe body spray, which meant the protein shake security duo wasn't hovering nearby. I was alone. Whoever had brought me here had either left me alone or was very, very good at hide-and-seek.
Well, fine. If no one was around, this was my cue. A cue for my grand escape. I wiggled. I shimmied. I tilted the chair like an underpaid escape artist auditioning for America's Got Regrets.
And then—suddenly—like the universe knew I was about to become unhinged, the gag was yanked from my mouth.
Praise every deity.
Finally, I could bark.
"How dare you!" I snarled, breathless and furious and more dramatic than necessary. "Do you have any idea who I am?"
No answer.
Was my threat not sufficiently terrifying? Should I have added something about international consequences or at least a few very angry lawyers?
"Coward!" I hissed, twisting in my restraints like a very fashionable angry pretzel. "You absolute, spineless waste of breathable air! If you had an ounce of decency, you'd challenge me face-to-face instead of kidnapping me like some third-tier Netflix villain!"
Still nothing. But I wasn't done.
I writhed and twisted and jerked my chair in a performance worthy of an off-off-Broadway debut. "HELLO? Are you deaf? LET. ME—"
"Hush…"
The word slithered through the air, silk against steel, brushing my left ear like a phantom kiss. It wasn't just a feminine voice—it was an invocation. A seduction. A curse.
My breath hitched. My body tensed. Who the hell was this? My eyes scrambled for logic, for sense, for anything—but before I could claw my way to reason, something brushed my lips. Not violent. Not rushed. Just... deliberate. A finger. Smooth and commanding. As though a single touch could leash the chaos simmering in my lungs. And, terrifyingly, for a fleeting heartbeat—it did.
I opened my mouth to retaliate, to scream, to thrash. But before I could make a sound, her fingertips pressed harder, then dragged—slow and steady—across the seam of my mouth, tracing the line of my jaw like a sculptor studying forbidden art. I shuddered, not from fear—but something worse. Something tangled and primal.
No one had ever gotten this close to me. Not without permission. And never without consequence.
I was heat, hunger and fury when her breath ghosted against my cheekbones. That exhale—cool and humid—carried something dizzying. A scent that shouldn't have made sense: lilies soaked in lust, edged with danger. It was wrong. Maddening. Erotic. And god, it was intoxicating.
I didn't want to feel this. I refused to.
I clenched my fists, rage blooming like fire in my belly. I was ready to snap her neck, whoever she was, ready to rip free and burn this place to the fucking ground—
Then I heard her voice. Velvet and thorns.
"You wear that suit like you own the world," she purred, her fingers skating across my shoulders, slipping beneath the fabric. With one fluid motion, she peeled back my coat, baring me like a secret. "But you're even sexier when you're furious."
Her hands moved like velvet shadows across my body—every fingertip a question, every glide a claim. It was more than touch. It was a silent invasion, a seduction stitched in darkness, and God help me, it ignited something primal, something foul and forbidden that curled hot and hungry beneath my skin. My breath caught. My muscles tensed. She wasn't just exploring—she was consuming.
And when her hand slipped lower—too low—gripping the one part of me that had no business being touched by anyone, least of all her, a line was crossed.
Rage spiked in my throat, hot and sharp.
That was the boundary. A sacred ground. Untouchable. Off-limits.
People fantasized about breaking me, hungered for a scream, a slip, a crack in my façade. But this? This wasn't fantasy—it was heresy, wrapped in silk and heat. A privilege reserved for none.
"Hey!" I barked, venom curling my voice. "Get your damn hands off me and untie me. Now. Don't even think—"
She silenced me with one gloved finger pressed against my lips, commanding more with that simple gesture than most could with a scream. Then, without asking, she straddled my lap as though it were a throne and she the queen, had come to collect.
Her hands wrapped around my neck—not tight, but possessive. Too intimate. Too certain. Like she'd already claimed me in some wicked script only she had read.
"Get the hell off me!" I snarled, but even I could hear the conflicted undertone in my voice.
She leaned in, brushing her lips just shy of my earlobe, her breath a whisper of silk and sin.
"Shh. I won't hurt you," she murmured, like a promise dipped in poison. "I'm not here to harm you. I just wanted a moment…" Her hand slid down again, tracing down my torso, sliding between the grooves of my abs. "…with the man who thinks he can't be unraveled."
I clenched my jaw. My heart was a hammer in my chest.
"Who the hell are you?" I exhaled, teeth grit. "Why are you doing this? If this is some twisted psych project or a cheap thrill, I swear—you'll regret it."
She laughed. Audacity! A sound too delighted for the threat I'd just hurled.
No fear. Not an ounce. Whatever she was made of, it wasn't flesh and bone. It was forged in something colder. Sharper.
She leaned in then, her hands finding my jaw with an intimate kind of possessiveness that made my breath stall. Her lips hovered a breath from mine—close enough to taste the danger. "Oh, sweetheart... you think you can ruin me? That's adorable." Her hips shifted, grinding subtly, slowly. "I devour men like you before breakfast"
I scoffed. I had to. It was the only armor I had left.
She teased my lips, tweaking them. "You should be honored, really. I don't usually get attached."
"What the hell does that mean?" I bit out, voice low, tight, barely tethered.
She leaned in—too close, far too close—and her breath danced over my lips, warm, laced with something wicked. Then, softly, like a confession buried in velvet, she whispered, "I'm obsessed with you. Damn it."
That didn't shock me. Not really. I'd heard those words before—hell, lived through them. One woman had etched I love you, Yuvaan across the stone wall outside my family estate. Another had sent a daily parade of roses, soaked in perfume and lust-scrawled letters.
But this... this was something else entirely. This wasn't garden-variety infatuation. It wasn't a cry for attention. No, this was twisted, new, and oddly fascinating. Dangerous in a way that sent a jolt down my spine—and not the kind I enjoyed.
And I knew exactly what to do with it.
Dodge it. Like I always had. With charm, with sarcasm, with indifference so cold it could sterilize steel.
She stood then, slow and deliberate. "But you see," her voice echoed softly now, drifting from somewhere behind me, maybe three feet away, "I'm not like those other girls. They wrote their devotion in cheap ink and fairy dust."
I yanked against the restraints biting into my wrists, fabric once smooth now a thousand pricking needles. "Ughmmph," I growled through clenched teeth.
She let out a knowing laugh, "I finish what I start." Her pause was laced with threat. "And I can't just leave the President of Sauve bound and squirming like this, can I?"
She was toying with me.
Rage surged through me, dark and hot. This woman had kidnapped me. Tied me like a prize. Watched me as if I belonged to her. As if I was some rare thing meant to be kept in glass and velvet.
Bullshit!
I wasn't a conquest. I wasn't something you win.
And God knows, I had no interest in playing the lead in her romantic delusion. I didn't do love. Especially not the kind that came dressed in obsession and control. The very thought of it coated my mouth in ash.
My struggles halted as her presence loomed again. Closer.
I sniffed.
Lilies. And something darker.
Something that didn't bloom—it bled.
She yanked the blindfold off with the kind of flair that made me flinch—rude—and my eyelids fluttered as the sudden sunlight punched me right in the corneas. I squinted like an overcooked mole-person. My eyeballs did the slow dance of adaptation—blurry edges, bleached brightness, the whole sensory roulette—and then… clarity.
And then I saw her.
She was there. Standing like a freaking goddess carved from trouble, wrapped in a black bandage dress that hugged her like it had secrets to tell. Her stilettos tapped against the floor with intentional elegance, and her long waves of chocolate-brown hair cascaded over her shoulders as she glided toward the table like she belonged in a perfume ad. One with violins playing in the background and wind machines blowing at precisely the right angle.
My brain short-circuited.
Where the hell was I?
A slow, dramatic scan of the place told me I was definitely not in Kansas—or anywhere remotely logical. It wasn't a room. Not a cage. I wasn't underground being interrogated by some Bond villain. This place was... elegant. Obscenely so. The kind of luxury that whispers money and shouts power. A rooftop oasis perched on top of what had to be a ten-star building. Beyond the glass railings was a panorama straight out of a travel influencer's fever dream—rolling mountains, a shimmering waterfall in the distance, and what might have been a unicorn grazing under an olive tree. Or maybe that was the dehydration talking.
My wrists shifted and—aha!—the cuff around them finally gave way with a satisfying glide. I rubbed the red marks and looked up just in time to catch her lowering herself into a plush chair like she was gracing it with her divine presence.
She turned slowly, as if she'd been waiting for this exact moment. Time bent. Or maybe I did. Her face came into full, unrelenting focus—and I forgot how to breathe.
Oh.
Oh no. No. No.
I knew that face (an actual diamond of a face). That face had been on every screen, every headline, every scandalous exposé. Angular jaw, red lips made for press conferences, eyebrows arched like they were born condescending and black eyes that didn't blink—they assessed.
She wasn't some woman.
She was the woman.
The Chief Executive of TVS Media. Also known as: The woman who could leak your entire browser history with a flick of her wrist. It was the global empire. The network that made politicians cry and Hollywood A-listers sweat off their concealer.
No. Freaking. Way.
And I'd been handcuffed by her? In broad daylight?
Was this a crime? A seduction? A kidnapping with a five-star Yelp rating?
My mouth opened to demand some version of clarity, but she interrupted me.
"I know, you're shocked," she purred, completely unbothered, and took a bite of French toast. Her lips wrapped around the fork like it was part of some twisted audition tape. Then she licked it. Licked it. "You're even hotter when you look like that, by the way."
"Cut the crap. Answer the damn question."
Her smile spread like fire. "Italy."
She said it like she was announcing a sale at Gucci.
"We're in Italy," she repeated. "On a blind date."
My jaw dislocated. Or it felt like it did.
Italy!
Blind date!
My brain went into a tailspin, the room spinning just a little too dramatically. The wind whispered through the lavish rooftop garden, string music humming in the background like we were in the third act of a romcom. And then—
Boom!
The realization hit me like a wrecking ball wrapped in designer ribbon.
I'd been kidnapped into a date.
With the most powerful woman in global media.
What. The. Actual. Hell.