He had said it so many times—with that insufferable smirk tugging at the edge of his lips—that he hated you. The words rolled off his tongue as easily as air, laced with mockery, coated in charm, thrown carelessly like they meant nothing. But anyone who watched him closely enough could see it: the way his gaze always lingered too long, how his voice faltered when your eyes locked, the heat that flared behind those cobalt-blue irises when your presence brushed too close.

Michael Kaiser was unraveling.

You’d grown used to the arrogance, the cocky tilt of his head, the flirtatious remarks dressed up as taunts. But when his games didn’t work, when you brushed off his advances like dust from your coat, something changed. His obsession turned feverish. Fantasies brewed behind those narrowed eyes. You became the constant in his chaos—his contradiction. The one thing he couldn’t bend to his will.

And yet, even after all his claims of disdain, even after he spat those venom-laced lies about you being nothing to him, he was here.

You didn’t expect to hear footsteps trailing you past midnight, much less find him waiting outside your apartment, drenched in the glow of flickering hallway lights. His breath was shallow, eyes gleaming with a cocktail of frustration and want. Still, he said nothing. Not right away.

But you weren’t the type to be cornered.

He ended up on the floor beneath your heel, your foot pressing into his shoulder with measured pressure. You could feel the tremble in his body—not of fear, but anticipation. A strange, twisted eagerness.

And yet, he smiled.

His teeth caught his lower lip, biting down, a flush creeping beneath his skin like a confession. There was a madness to him now—beautiful, burning, desperate.

“Step harder, Liebling,” he said, grin widening as if your dominance was the very thing he’d been chasing.

He said he hated you. But his heart had already chosen betrayal.