The next few days blurred into a rhythm Lena hadn't expected — early mornings at her tiny studio apartment, coffee barely touched, sketchbooks sprawled across the table. Then long afternoons inside the quiet sanctuary of Alexander's borrowed townhouse.
Every day, he was there.
Watching.
Listening.
Challenging her.
And every day, Lena found herself slipping further into something she couldn't name.
On Thursday, she arrived carrying rolls of concept drawings, her nerves taut as piano wires. She wore her safest outfit — black jeans, a loose sweater, hair pulled back in a messy knot — armor against the way Alexander Kane looked at her.
And he did look at her.
Not in the dismissive way her old bosses had. Not in the casual, objectifying way strangers on the street sometimes did.
No, Alexander watched her like she was a mystery he was desperate to solve.
"You're early," he said, opening the door before she even knocked.
Lena offered a tight smile. "Couldn't sleep."
He stepped aside to let her in, his shoulder brushing hers in a way that felt too deliberate to be an accident.
Inside, the study was already flooded with sunlight. The garden outside danced with color, wildflowers swaying in the breeze. It felt like a different world — one where skyscrapers and boardrooms didn't exist.
She spread her sketches across the desk, carefully smoothing the pages.
Alexander leaned over her shoulder, his presence a heavy, magnetic pull.
"I like this," he said, pointing to one design — a wraparound porch with battered wooden railings and wide steps leading down into a tangled garden.
"It's messy," Lena said.
"It's real," he countered.
Their eyes met, and the air between them grew thick again.
"You know," she said lightly, desperate to break the tension, "most clients just nod politely and tell me to pick the cheapest materials."
Alexander's mouth curved slightly. "I'm not most clients."
No, he definitely wasn't.
She turned back to the drawings, forcing herself to focus.
"This one," she said, tapping another sheet. "It feels like you. Strong structure. Simple lines. But the inside — it's warm. Inviting. Hidden, almost."
He said nothing, but she felt the tension ripple off him like a current.
"You see too much," he said quietly.
Lena smiled without looking up. "It's my job."
They worked for hours, adjusting layouts, debating materials, arguing softly over windows and lighting. And somehow, somewhere between blueprints and laughter, the lines Lena had drawn so carefully between them began to blur.
It was in the way Alexander listened — truly listened — when she explained the importance of a reading nook tucked beside a fireplace. It was in the way he asked questions not just about architecture, but about her.
"Why architecture?" he asked once, leaning back in his chair, studying her as if she were a design to be unraveled.
Lena hesitated, tapping her pencil against the table.
"Because buildings don't leave you," she said finally. "People do. Dreams do. But walls you build with your own hands — they stay."
It was the kind of thing she never admitted out loud.
Alexander's expression softened, something raw and unguarded flickering across his face.
"You've been left," he said, not a question, but a quiet acknowledgment.
Lena shrugged, uncomfortable. "Haven't we all?"
He didn't answer, but the heaviness in his silence said enough.
As the sun dipped lower, casting golden light across the room, Lena gathered her papers, suddenly aware of how long she'd been here. How easy it had become.
"I should go," she said, her voice rough.
Alexander stood too, moving closer. Too close.
"Lena."
Her name was a whisper between them, rough and tender all at once.
She looked up — and the world tilted.
There it was.
The moment she'd been trying to outrun all week.
His hand lifted, fingers brushing her jaw, tentative at first, then firmer when she didn't pull away.
"You make it hard," he said roughly. "Drawing lines. Pretending there's nothing here."
Her heart pounded so hard she thought it might bruise her ribs.
"We agreed on boundaries," she whispered, though her voice shook with the lie of it.
Alexander's mouth quirked, a sad, knowing smile.
"Some things don't care about agreements."
For one terrible, beautiful second, she thought he might kiss her. She thought she might let him.
But he didn't.
Instead, he stepped back, hands falling away as if it physically hurt him to do it.
"Go," he said hoarsely. "Before I forget every reason why I shouldn't."
Lena gathered her things in a rush, nearly fumbling them in her haste. Her skin burned where he had touched her, her heart tearing between relief and regret.
At the door, she paused, unable to help herself.
"When do we meet again?" she asked, her voice embarrassingly small.
Alexander smiled — a real, broken thing that made him devastatingly human.
"Tomorrow," he said. "Same time."
She nodded and fled into the waiting SUV, the door closing behind her with a soft thud that sounded suspiciously like a warning.
Tomorrow.
Another day to build a home.
Another day to tear down her own defenses.
And deep inside, Lena knew:
Some boundaries were never meant to hold.