Zane's pov:
The rain had turned cruel.
It wasn't soft anymore it stabbed. It clawed at her skin, soaking into her thin cardigan and drenching the sketchpad pressed to her chest. People rushed past her with umbrellas and drivers honked angrily, but she stood still like the world had knocked the wind out of her and left her there to feel it.
Jean clutched her soaked drawings like they were her pride.
Because tonight?She'd finally believed she was good enough.
And tonight?They laughed.
The gallery owner barely glanced at her portfolio before shoving it back into her hands with a bored shrug and a fake smile. "Too soft, not bold. Doesn't sell."
So now she stood in the rain, mascara bleeding, hope bruised, and her heart pounding for all the wrong reasons.
Until He saw her.
From across the street.
Zane Thorne hadn't meant to stop. His black car had just pulled up outside the same gallery, driver waiting, rain lashing against the windows. But his eyes had caught something
Someone.
A girl.Drenched.Defiant.
There was no umbrella above her head, no panic in her stance. Just quiet heartbreak. And yet somehow she looked like she was holding the world together with nothing but a trembling chin and shaking fingers.
He didn't blink.
Didn't breathe.
Because something inside him moved.
A silent, strange pull like gravity had shifted just for her. Like every sound in the world went quiet, just for him to hear the way her breath caught in her throat.
She didn't see him.
But he saw her like he'd never seen anything before.
And for the first time in twenty-eight years… Zane Thorne felt fear.The fear that if he let her disappear into the night, he might never feel this alive again.
So he opened the car door.
And stepped into the rain.
He doesn't move.
He just stands there, still as a statue, letting the rain drench his thousand-dollar suit. Thunder rolls somewhere distant, but all he hears is the quiet sound of her breath hitching across the street.
Her fingers shake as she presses the sketchbook tighter to her chest. Her eyes don't see him. They're glassy, shattered, staring at something far beyond this cold world.
And he hates it.
He hates the way that sadness dares to touch her.
He hates the way people pass her like she's invisible.
He hates the idea that someone made her feel this small.
And yet...He's never seen anything so big.
Something in her the way she didn't cry, the way she didn't run, the way she simply stood there like a broken painting that refused to fall makes his chest ache in a way he doesn't recognize.
Or like.
"Sir?" his driver murmurs from beside him. "We should go. You'll catch cold."
Zane's jaw clenches.
His hand curls at his side.
And then, without a flicker of hesitation, he pulls out his phone.
"Find out who she is."
The man on the other end doesn't ask who. Doesn't need to.
Zane Thorne doesn't ask for women.He doesn't look twice.He doesn't pause.
Until now.
"You want a name, sir?" the voice says. "Background check?"
Zane's voice is calm.Too calm.
"Everything."
He doesn't take his eyes off her.
Doesn't blink as she turns, slowly, and disappears into the rain-soaked street oblivious to the man who just decided that she would never be forgotten again.
Not by him.
Not in this lifetime.
She doesn't even know his name.But Zane Thorne already knows—He's going to ruin his world for her.
-------
Jean's pov:
The rain was still falling, but she didn't feel it anymore. Not on her skin. Not in her bones. Not even in the cracks of her ribs where disappointment usually settled like a second heartbeat.
She walked.
One foot in front of the other.
Her sketchpad pressed tight to her chest like armor. Like maybe it could hold her together if she just gripped it hard enough.
The city lights blurred behind a sheen of tears she refused to let fall. No one noticed. No one ever did. And she was good at pretending now so good it scared her.
She turned the corner, water sloshing in her old shoes, the ones with the soles worn thin and the smiley face she'd drawn under the tongue—just to feel like there was still a bit of her mother somewhere close. That used to make her feel safe.
It didn't anymore.
Because safety had never lasted.
Not when her mother died.
Not when her father turned to poker chips and whiskey instead of looking her in the eye.
Not when her uncle whispered things that made her skin crawl and her voice disappear at just eight years old.
She never told anyone. Who would believe her? She was the quiet girl, the odd one who talked to pencils and poured her heart into paper instead of people.
People lied.
Paper didn't.
She stopped at a bus shelter, blinking hard as a gust of wind whipped cold rain against her cheek. She didn't bother wiping it off. The water didn't sting as much as the memory of that gallery owner's smirk.
Too soft. Not bold. Doesn't sell.
Her fingers curled tighter around the sketchpad.
They didn't know what it cost her to draw.
They didn't know that every line she sketched was a fight to breathe. That her art was the only place she wasn't broken.
"Too soft," she muttered under her breath, bitter. "I didn't know strength meant becoming someone else."
The streetlight above flickered once.
She glanced up just in time to see a sleek black car glide past the intersection. Tinted windows. Expensive.
She didn't notice the man inside, still watching. She couldn't.
But maybe—maybe she felt it.
A strange pulse in her chest, like the air had shifted for half a second.
She ignored it.
Another lie.
Another illusion.
She'd stopped believing in moments like that a long time ago.
-----
The door creaked as she stepped inside, soaked to the bone, the chill of the night clinging to her skin like guilt.
It wasn't much this apartment.Just one cramped room above a bakery that always smelled like burnt sugar and sadness. The wallpaper peeled in the corners. The radiator coughed instead of heating. And the only window was too small to see the sky properly.
But it was hers.
Her refuge.
Jean shut the door behind her, letting the world exhale on the other side. No voices. No looks. No men with fake smiles or slurred threats. Just silence. And the faint buzz of the fridge she bought second-hand off a woman who didn't ask questions.
She dropped the sketchpad on the tiny kitchen table. The edges were warped now. The charcoal smeared.
She should've been angry.
But anger took energy.
And she didn't have any left.
So she peeled off her wet clothes and wrapped herself in the oversized hoodie that still smelled faintly of her mother's vanilla lotion, though she had no idea how. It didn't even make sense. But she never washed it properly just to keep that scent. Even if it was fake.
Even if everything was fake.
She didn't cry.
She never cried here. This place didn't deserve to carry that weight.
Instead, she lit a tiny candle on the shelf by her mattress. The flame trembled in the quiet. A soft, shaky heartbeat.
She sat beside it and finally let herself feel tired.
Not the kind of tired that sleep could fix.
The kind that lived in your bones.
The kind that made even breathing feel like a burden.
Her fingers curled around a pencil out of habit, tracing meaningless lines onto a torn paper. Not art. Just motion. Just a reason to keep her hands from shaking.
Because some nights, her body remembered.
The feeling of his hands.The shadow of footsteps outside her door.The way her father looked through her, not at her.
Some nights, she woke up choking on her own breath, heart slamming against her ribs like a prisoner trying to escape.
But no one heard.
No one ever heard.
She leaned her forehead against the table.
"This world doesn't care," she whispered to the flame. "So I'll stop asking it to."
A long silence.
Then, a flicker.
Like the candle wanted to argue.
Like it knew something she didn't.
------
Zane's pov:
The city pulsed beneath him lights blinking like warnings across the skyline but Zane stood still in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, jaw clenched, glass of untouched bourbon sweating in his hand.
"She was standing in the rain," he murmured. "And yet I couldn't look away."
Behind him, his sleek office space was dimly lit, minimalist, cold. A place for war, not emotion. But the image of her drenched, defiant, broken and beautiful played on loop behind his eyes.
"Sir."
Zane didn't turn. He didn't have to.
Jared, his right-hand man, entered with a folder tucked beneath his arm and a subtle crease in his brow. "You asked for everything. Took some digging."
Zane stretched out his hand.
No words.
No questions.
Just that deadly, eerie stillness he wore like a second skin.
The folder landed in his palm.
He flipped it open.
Jean Gray. Twenty-two.Graduated from a community art school two years ago. No family listed as living. Grew up in a rougher part of town. Works two part-time jobs waitressing and freelance sketch commissions. Lives in a studio apartment the size of his wine cellar. Never been arrested. Never been photographed in the tabloids. No social media beyond a dusty art page that hadn't been updated in months.
"She's... clean," Jared said, almost sounding surprised. "Which is strange. No boyfriend, no scandal, no drama. Quiet. Almost invisible."
Zane's eyes narrowed.
Invisible.
The word made something in him snap.
"She shouldn't be," he said, voice low. "She's fire wrapped in silence."
He paused at one page an image.A candid.Taken from a distance.Jean standing at a train station, hair tied up messily, eyes lost in something only she could see.
Zane stared.Like he could unravel her just by looking long enough.
And maybe he would.
"How do I contact her?" he asked, but the way he said it didn't sound like a question. More like a decision already made.
"Do you want to reach out through Thorne Holdings or....?"
"No."
Zane's gaze darkened.
"She doesn't belong in this world. She's not ready for me."
Jared raised a brow. "So what do you want to do?"
Zane closed the folder with a snap.
"I want her to come to me."His smile if it could be called that was slow and dangerous."She just doesn't know it yet."