Accidentally His Again

My crappy apartment's ceiling caved in at midnight, forcing me to crash at my wealthy bestie's luxury penthouse.

But the second I walked in, I ran straight into my billionaire ex-boyfriend.

His deeply aggressive eyes locked onto me. What? Throwing yourself at me to rekindle our old flame?

What the hell? Why was he here?

I was just about to make a run for it when his towering frame blocked my escape. He closed in with crushing dominance. "Think you can just trespass on my territory and run?"

Chapter 1

I was dead to the world when a steady drip, drip, drip hit my face. I wiped my cheek, threw off the covers, and flicked on the light. A massive water stain had already spread across the ceiling. This was the third time this month.

To save cash, I rented a top-floor unit in a rundown building. It had literally nothing going for it except cheap rent. I shot my landlord a text about the leak, grabbed my stuff, and hauled ass to the luxury high-rise next door. My wealthy bestie, Genevieve, bought a condo there with her family's money just to look out for me.

Once inside, I grabbed my pajamas and made a beeline for the bathroom. I scrubbed off the day, crawled into bed, and pulled the covers up. The second I lay down, something felt off.

There was someone next to me.

"Why are you in the guest room instead of the master?" I mumbled, rolling over to throw my arms around my best friend.

Except

"Did you start lifting behind my back? This eight-pack feels way too good and these lat muscles"

Wait

"Holy shit! Genevieve, did you get a sex change?"

My shock was cut short by a low, magnetic voice rumbling right above my head. "Sadie, you really went through a lot of trouble just to seduce me."

Why did that voice sound so familiar? Panic spiked in my chest. I blindly reached for the bedside lamp.

Click. Light flooded the room.

I was staring straight into the handsome, storm-cloud face of my ex-boyfriend.

"Why are you here?" I yanked the comforter over myself.

But ripping the blanket away left Alaric exposed.

Remembering I was only in thin pajamas, I shoved the blanket right back onto him. Then, I scrambled to bolt.

I barely spun around before Alaric's iron grip clamped around my wrist, yanking me hard back onto the mattress.

He flipped over, pinning me firmly beneath his weight. The sharp, cold scent of his mint body wash instantly hijacked my lungs.

He ground his teeth together, his lips hovering mere inches from my ear. "Tease me and try to run? Sadie, do you think I'm that easy?"

"Then what what do you want?"

"What do you think?" Alaric clenched his jaw. Even radiating pure irritation, his face was infuriatingly flawless.

"If you want to I mean, I wouldn't fight it." I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing myself like a martyr facing a firing squad.

He let out a dark scoff. "Sorry. I have zero interest in you."

He pushed off the mattress to leave. But his foot caught in the tangled mess of the comforter. He crashed back down, his heavy body slamming right on top of mine.

His lips smashed directly against mine.

"Sadie, did your ceiling leak a" Genevieve's loud voice boomed as she threw the door wide open.

The words died in her throat the second she saw the scene on the bed. She stood frozen for a solid beat before stumbling backward.

"My bad. Didn't mean to interrupt. Carry on, carry on"

She slammed the door shut and bolted down the hall.

"No, wait! Genevieve, it's not what it looks like!"

Chapter 2

Half an hour later, I relocated from Alaric's bed to Genevieve's.

It was the middle of the night, but Genevieve was wide awake, practically vibrating with gossip. She propped herself up on her elbows and stared at me. "So you and my brother?"

"He's your brother?" I blinked in surprise.

"What, do we not look alike?"

I looked at Genevieve's round, baby-faced cheeks, then thought about Alaric's devastatingly handsome, chiseled features. I shook my head. "Not even a little bit."

"Who's better looking? Him or me?"

"Obviously, it's" Under Genevieve's sudden death glare, I quickly pivoted. "Obviously, it's you."

Satisfied, Genevieve sat up cross-legged. "Alright, spill it. What exactly is going on between you and my brother?"

"What do you mean, what's going on? You didn't tell me your brother was crashing here, so that happened!"

"Cut the crap!" Genevieve wasn't buying it for a second. "My brother is a total iceberg when it comes to women. If any other girl had crawled into his bed, he would have literally kicked her so hard into the wall she'd leave a dent."

Realizing I couldn't bullshit my way out of this, I sighed. "Fine. Cards on the table. He's my ex."

"Your ex?!" Genevieve's jaw hit the floor. "How how did I not know this?"

"We dated and broke up back in college." Genevieve and I didn't actually meet until we started working.

Processing the timeline, Genevieve's baby face twisted in shock.

"Holy shit! So you're the ex? The one he was so obsessed with that the breakup almost killed him?"

I stared at her, totally lost. "What do you mean, almost killed him? He was perfectly fine with it when we broke up."

Genevieve furrowed her brows so hard they practically met in the middle. "What the hell are you talking about? You have no idea. After that breakup, my brother went feral."

"He smashed everything in his penthouse to pieces. He spent night after night drowning himself in whiskey, teetering on the edge of this manic, desperate rage. Even his private doctor couldn't do a damn thing to help him."

She paused, taking a breath. "It took him months to claw his way out of that dark place. And even then, he became a hundred times more ruthless and untouchable than before."

Back in college, Alaric was already notoriously cold and untouchable. Judging from our brief encounter tonight, I definitely felt the extra layers of frost. But I never imagined I was the one who put them there.

"Sadie, how exactly did you guys end things?" Genevieve's eyes were wide, practically burning with curiosity.

"It was really simple, actually. I wanted to see a movie one day, and he said he didn't have time. After I went and saw it by myself, I texted him that we should break up."

I shrugged. "He replied 'Okay,' and we never spoke again."

Genevieve stared at me in disbelief. "That's it? It was that anticlimactic?"

I nodded honestly. "Yep. Just like that."

"So, Genevieve is there any chance your brother got his heart shattered by a different girlfriend?"

She shot down my theory immediately. "Impossible. My brother has literally only dated one girl his entire life. If it wasn't you, who else could it be?"

Chapter 3

After gossiping for another minute, Genevieve let out a massive yawn and passed out the second her head hit the pillow. Classic Genevievenothing mattered more than her beauty sleep. I lay next to her, staring at the ceiling, wide awake.

Alaric and I met freshman year of college. Between his insane good looks and his perfect GPA, he was basically campus royalty. Every girl on campus was obsessed with him, including me.

Countless girls threw themselves at him, but I was the only one stubborn enough to chase him from freshman all the way to senior year. By the first semester of senior year, I finally managed to thaw the ice king.

But even after we started dating, he remained the same cold, rigidly disciplined guy he always was. He treated me no differently than he treated anyone else. He never demanded anything from me, but as our relationship progressed, I craved more.

I wanted to get closer to him. But it never happened. My warmth was only ever met with his freezing detachment. Eventually, the exhaustion set in.

So, after sitting alone through that movie he couldn't make time for, I texted him that it was over. His reaction was painfully indifferentjust a single "Okay." After the breakup, I drank myself into a stupor, convinced that Alaric was relieved to finally be rid of me.

But according to Genevieve, he lost his damn mind. So did Alaric actually care about me back then? A tiny ripple of something unnameable stirred in my chest.

I quickly crushed it. Whatever happened back then, it was a year ago. Whether he cared or not, it was all in the past.

When I woke up the next morning, Genevieve's side of the bed was already empty. She recently started seeing someone and was basically out of the apartment from dawn till dusk. I stretched, stifling a yawn, and shuffled toward the bathroom to wash up.

I pushed the door open. Through the thick, swirling steam, a man stood with his back to me under the showerhead.

Droplets of water traced the hard lines of his broad shoulders and sculpted back muscles, disappearing into the sharp V-line at his waist. I sucked in a sharp breath.

He turned around, casually grabbing a towel and slinging it low around his narrow hips.

Water dripped from his razor-sharp jawline as his dark, stormy eyes locked onto me.

"Sadie. You failed to seduce me last night, so you're trying your luck again this morning?"

Holy hell. I just walked in on Alaric taking a shower!

"My bad. Wrong room." I spun on my heel to bolt.

Alaric's large hand clamped down on the back of my neck, stopping me dead in my tracks. "You 'walked into the wrong room' twice in a row. Do I look like an idiot to you?"

Okay, it sounded a little ridiculous, but still "Who the hell showers this early in the morning? If anything, you planned this just to frame me!"

He let out a harsh, disbelieving laugh. "I'm in the shower this early because of you."

"What does that have to do with me?" I stared at him, genuinely confused.

Alaric dropped his voice to a dangerous, gravelly murmur, practically grinding his teeth together. "I wonder who crawled into my bed last night and made it physically impossible for me to get a single minute of sleep."

Chapter 4

His low, magnetic voice exploded right next to my ear. Heat flooded my face, burning all the way to the tips of my ears.

So Alaric was taking a cold shower to cool off?

The realization hit me like a freight train. I couldn't even bring myself to meet his eyes. I seized the opening, buried my face in my hands, and bolted.

My racing heart didn't finally settle until I was safely back in my crappy rental apartment.

The landlord had shown up with a maintenance guy. He claimed the leak was just trapped rainwater from the massive storms a few days ago.

I didn't care what kind of water it was. The point was that this tiny shoebox leaked every other day, and there were barely any dry spots left. Over the past month, Id shoved my bed into every possible corner until only one safe zone remained.

After helping the landlord drag the mattress to the final dry spot, I let out a heavy breath. If the ceiling caved in here too, Id officially have to pack up and leave.

I didn't get a single second to rest after that. I spent the entire day scrubbing floors, doing laundry, and hanging my soaked sheets to dry. By the time evening rolled around, I finally sat down by the window to work on some design sketches.

Genevieve's name flashed on my phone screen. "Sadie, why did you go back to that dump? Why don't you just stay at my place?"

"You don't have to worry about my brother. He only crashed there last night because his penthouse nearby has been empty for a while and he had the cleaning crew in. He should be gone by today."

"It's fine, Genevieve. I can still make this place work."

She kept pushing until I swore I'd move into her place if one more drop of water hit my floor. Only then did she finally hang up.

A warm feeling settled in my chest as I tossed my phone aside. Genevieve and I met at our first corporate job. We started out as regular coworkers, but our vibes clicked instantly. We became inseparable pretty much overnight.

Not too long ago, the senior staff started actively freezing us out because we were outperforming them. We took one look at each other and mutually decided to fire our boss.

We quit on the spot.

After entering unemployment, Genevieve just lived her best lifepartying, shopping, and casually waiting to inherit her family's empire. Me? I lived off freelance design gigs, poaching the clients Id built up over the past year and working from home.

Because I lost so much time cleaning during the day, I had to pull a late shift, finally crashing at two in the morning.

I was dead to the world when an icy splatter hit my foot.

I jerked awake. "Holy shit! Again?!"

I scrambled to grab a plastic bucket and shoved it directly onto the mattress to catch the drips, quickly pulling my dry blankets to safety. I honestly didn't know whether to cry or laugh at the sheer absurdity of my life. Was I supposed to be grateful the water didn't hit my face this time?

It was the middle of the night. What else could I do? Back to Genevieve's I went.

Besides, Genevieve guaranteed Alaric was only staying for one night. No Alaric meant no awkward run-ins.

I sprinted to her luxury high-rise next door. Once inside, I headed straight for the guest room.

My hand hovered over the doorknob. I noticed the guest room door was shut tightjust like last night. Usually, if a room was empty, the door would be left cracked open.

Just to be safe, I decided to skip the guest room entirely and crash in Genevieve's master suite instead. I crawled under the thick duvet and threw my arm around Genevieve.

My blood ran cold.

What the hell? These rock-hard muscles this exact same feeling

Chapter 5

Click. I flicked on the light.

Sure enough, I was staring straight into Alaric's deadly glare.

This time, I went on the offensive. "Why the hell are you in here? Isn't this Genevieve's room?"

"Over and over again. Sadie, don't tell me this is just another coincidence." Alaric gave me this looka dark, mocking keep playing dumb stare that made my blood boil.

"What else would it be? You think I'm just drooling over your body?"

"Obviously. Back in college, you used to stare at my face and practically drool. I knew even back then" Alaric's voice trailed off, his words hitting an abrupt wall.

A complicated, unreadable shadow flickered in his eyes.

Dragging up our past instantly killed my momentum. I rubbed the back of my neck. "I'm gonna go find Genevieve."

I turned to leave, but the bedroom door wouldn't budge.

Seeing me struggle with the handle, Alaric stalked over. After rattling the locked knob a few times himself, he turned his sharp gaze to me. "The door was perfectly fine. Why is it suddenly jammed the second you walk in?"

His tone dripped with heavy implication. Like I had carefully orchestrated this entire trap.

I was literally losing my mind. My mouth moved faster than my brain. "Look, maybe I have zero self-control when it comes to your body, but do you honestly think I have the brainpower to mastermind this many coincidences?"

"Fair point." Alaric nodded slowly. "You really don't have the brains for it."

My jaw dropped. So infuriating! I planted my hands on my hips, glaring up at him.

"Why are you in Genevieve's room anyway, Alaric? Don't tell me you were just waiting for me to walk into the wrong room!"

Alaric closed the distance between us with a slow, predatory stride. His long fingers reached out, sliding firmly under my chin to tilt my head up. His dark eyes swirled with a dangerous, possessive heat that practically burned my skin. "Is it possible I slept in here on purpose, just waiting for my prey to walk right into my trap?"

I stared at him, speechless