Sebastian's POV
It's been a year.
Twelve months since I bought a girl in chains. Since I saw her eyes silently begging me to save her. Since she stepped into my life like a storm pretending to be sunlight.
Now?
She is sunlight.
She doesn't flinch at footsteps anymore. Doesn't jolt awake gasping from nightmares. She sleeps through the night like someone who finally believes they're safe.
I lean against the doorway, arms crossed, watching her rummage through the fridge in my stupidly expensive, oversized kitchen like she owns the place.
She does. She just doesn't know it.
Ray's in her university uniform—black blazer, white shirt tucked into that pencil skirt she keeps tugging down. Long hair in a high ponytail that swishes like it has its own attitude. Backpack slung over one shoulder, full to bursting.
And she's talking to herself. Again.
"Where did Kai hide the blueberry yogurt? I know he bought some. I'm gonna fight him if he finished it. On God."
She says it with so much seriousness, I almost laugh.
I don't. I smile.
I smile—a real one. Because somehow, impossibly, this is my Monday morning now: the mafia king of England, watching a law student threaten bodily harm over yogurt.
She turns around and jumps a little when she sees me.
"Oh. You're up," she says, closing the fridge. "I didn't mean to wake you."
"You didn't," I say, voice rough from sleep. "You're loud, but not that loud."
She sticks her tongue out. "I'm not loud. I'm spirited."
That earns a small chuckle from me. She grins, like she just won the lottery. Every time I let something slip—every time I laugh, smile, tease—she treats it like gold.
"I'll be late," she says, grabbing a banana instead. "Tell Kai to stop stealing my food."
I raise a brow. "He's your bodyguard, not your butler."
"He's both when he eats my snacks," she says matter-of-factly, stuffing the banana in her bag and brushing past me. "Bye, Seb!"
Not sir. Not Mr. Blake.
Just Seb.
I don't know when I stopped minding. Maybe I never did.
She pauses at the door.
Then, like she's done a hundred times before, she turns around and presses a kiss to my cheek.
"You're smiling again," she whispers.
Then she runs.
And I stand there, fingers brushing where her lips had been, heart thundering like a kid in love.
God help me.
I am.