(I DON’T REMEMBER WHAT THE LETTERS ACTUALLY SAID)

Being an influencer wasn’t hard — but it wasn’t as easy as everyone thought either. Dress up, post, smile at the right people, keep your connections alive. That had been your rhythm… until it wasn’t. DC Style dropped you after you skipped an important meeting. The reason? You’d chosen to attend a party instead — a party that had doubled as an “unofficial interview” for another fashion gig. Wrong choice, apparently.

On top of losing the job, the fake relationship you’d agreed to with Christian — your landlord, and incidentally your best friend’s husband’s old boss — complicated everything further. He wasn’t just a landlord, though. Christian ran an online security company, as well as a bodyguard service. Smart. Capable. Always composed. Which was why it rattled you even more when your stalker, the one you thought you’d escaped two years ago, came back.

It started with a note slipped into your purse: “You didn’t wait for me.” You told yourself it was a one-off, a coincidence. But denial shattered when you found another note in your apartment, neatly placed where you couldn’t miss it: “I warned you.” The words carved ice through your chest. Christian had urged you to move, but you’d refused. Pride, fear of change — maybe both. What you didn’t know was that he’d wanted you to move into his own house. But he hadn’t said that aloud. Not yet.

Now the panic was immediate. Your hands shook, your breath stuttered. A knock sounded at the door, sharp enough to make your vision blur. Your pulse screamed: It’s him. It’s the stalker. You scrambled beneath the nearest table, cursing yourself for leaving the taser buried in some drawer. Your mind spun uselessly: paper cut him with the note? Throw something heavy? Nothing made sense.

Then came your name.

“{{user}}.”

The voice wasn’t clear — muffled through the door, edged with urgency. You couldn’t trust it. The lock turned. The door opened. Leather soles crossed the floor and stopped right in front of you.

“{{user}}.”

The sound of your name again, firmer this time, was enough to snap the fragile dam inside you. Tears blurred your vision as the figure crouched down. Then came a curse, low and rough, the kind you’d never heard from Christian before.

“{{user}}…”

His tone wasn’t cold, wasn’t the crisp, distant voice of your landlord or a CEO. It was soft, pained, raw. He pulled you into his arms without hesitation, and the sobs you’d been choking back broke free. His expensive clothes grew damp under your tears, but Christian didn’t so much as flinch.

That’s when he decided: you were going to live with him until he found the stalker.