The night air in Wellington always carried the scent of a storm before the first drop of rain truly fell.
Humid.
Thick with ozone.
And heavy with the heat trapped between the gray sky and the Florida swamps.
Ten o’clock at night.
The main corridor of Blackstone Estate was almost completely dark, illuminated only by dim, honey-yellow wall lights spaced every five meters.
Alesya sat on a wooden crate in front of Phantom’s stall.
She wore an oversized thin black t-shirt and loose cotton pants.
Her hair was left loose, still damp from her shower, spreading the scent of vanilla and lavender into the corridor air that smelled of dry hay.
Beside her, a small Bluetooth speaker glowed with a faint blue light.
Classical music flowed slowly through the silence of the barn.
Not the grand, noisy orchestral music.
Just the low, deep solo cello notes of Chopin’s Nocturne in C-sharp Minor, vibrating at a frequency of 432 Hertz.
A frequency that, according to Alesya’s research, could lower cortisol production in large mammals suffering from acoustic trauma.
Phantom stood with his head bowed low at the threshold of his half-open stall.
The horse’s black eyes were half-closed, his breath coming out long and steady, enjoying the wood resonance traveling through the concrete floor to his hooves.
Alesya rubbed her tired forehead.
But every time she closed her eyes, it wasn’t Phantom’s heart rate data that came to mind.
It was the shadow of Revan Caldwell from that afternoon.
The way the man had gripped his jaw under the bougainvillea tree.
The way his gray eyes had darkened with wild jealousy when he saw Declan kiss her hand.
And how a man as strong as Revan could look so broken and bare when his shoulder locked up in pain.
“Don’t play blind in front of me, buddy.
You look at that vet as if she’s the only living creature left in all of Florida.”
Declan’s warning to Revan still echoed in Alesya’s head.
She had accidentally overheard it from behind the barn door.
And since that second, Alesya’s heart had refused to beat normally.
“You’ve chosen the wrong composer if your goal is to put a horse to sleep, Dr.
Vargas.”
The voice emerged from the darkness of the west corridor.
Alesya jerked.
Her hand reflexively touched her chest, which had suddenly started pounding.
Revan stepped out from behind the shadow of a mahogany pillar.
The man wasn’t wearing his formal shirt, nor his stiff training uniform.
He wore only a plain black t-shirt that clung tightly to his broad chest and dark gray sweatpants.
His black hair was messy, falling over his forehead without the styling of expensive pomade.
He looked younger.
Rawer.
And a hundred times more dangerous than Revan Caldwell in his billionaire suit.
Revan approached silently, wearing only casual leather sandals.
The scent of cedarwood, sweet tobacco, and the cold night wind instantly flooded Alesya’s senses.
“Chopin isn’t for sleeping,” Alesya said, trying to stabilize her hoarse voice in the night silence.
“It’s to slow brain waves from beta to alpha.”
Revan stopped right in front of the wooden crate where Alesya sat.
The distance between them was less than a meter.
The shadow of the 188-centimeter-tall man swallowed Alesya completely under the wall light.
Revan looked at the small speaker beside Alesya’s feet, then shifted his gaze to the woman’s face.
“Solo cello.
Jacqueline du Pré’s 1970 arrangement,” Revan murmured softly.
Alesya frowned, surprised.
“You recognize the recording?”
Revan didn’t answer immediately.
The man stepped toward Phantom’s stall door, extending his right hand to stroke the black horse’s forehead.
Phantom greeted Revan’s touch with a soft snort, resting his nose against Revan’s arm without fear.
“My mother played the same cassette tape every time her horse had a fever after traveling from Europe,” Revan whispered.
His voice was low.
There was a fragile tone that Revan had never let anyone hear in the last eighteen years.
Alesya held her breath.
This was the first time Revan had voluntarily used the word my mother in front of her.
“Catalina Reyes,” Alesya said carefully.
Revan turned his head slowly.
His gray eyes stared at Alesya in the dim darkness, shimmering with emotions so deep and dangerous.
“Did Marcus tell you about her?”
“Only a little,” Alesya answered honestly.
“That she was an incredible rider.
And that she loved horses more than anything in this world.”
Revan smiled thinly.
A smile so bitter and full of wounds that it made Alesya’s chest ache just looking at it.
The man turned away from the stall door and stepped closer to the wooden crate.
Without asking for permission, Revan sat on the same crate.
Very close.
So close that their thighs, wrapped in thin fabric, touched each other.
Revan’s body heat instantly seeped through Alesya’s cotton pants, sending an electric shock that made the hair on her neck stand up.
Alesya wanted to shift away, but her body refused to move.
This man’s gravity was too strong.
“My mother believed that horses don’t hear with their ears,” Revan whispered, his eyes staring straight into the dark barn corridor ahead of them.
“They hear with their sternums.
Every sound frequency travels through the ground, up to the hooves, and vibrates in their ribs.”
Revan turned his head, looking at Alesya from the side.
Their faces were only a few inches apart.
Alesya could see the reflection of the honey-yellow light in Revan’s pupils, smell the clean warmth of his breath, and feel how the man’s gaze stripped bare every inch of her defenses.
“Just like the theory you wrote in your medical notes yesterday,” Revan continued softly.
“Where did you learn things like that, Alesya?
Not in a formal university, right?”
Alesya swallowed.
Her throat felt dry under the intensity of the man’s gaze.
“From my father,” Alesya whispered hoarsely.
“Tomás Vargas.
He wasn’t a world-class show jumping athlete like you.
He was just a local jinete on a small coffee plantation outside Bogotá.
But he could calm the wildest horse just by singing next to their ears.”
Revan’s eyes softened.
The hard lines around his jaw melted completely.
“He must have been a great man.”
“He passed away,” Alesya said, her voice trembling slightly with old grief that had never truly disappeared.
“When I was seventeen.
A heart attack in the middle of the training arena.”
A thick, intimate silence instantly enveloped them both.
There was only the friction of the cello strings from the small speaker and the sound of strong winds beginning to shake the barn’s tin roof in the distance.
Two people who had both lost half their souls on the sand of a riding arena.
Revan stared at Alesya’s profile, at her ripe lips trembling slightly, her long eyelashes, and a strand of wet hair sticking to her slender neck.
Revan’s right hand moved slowly in the night air.
The man’s rough fingers landed on the side of Alesya’s neck.
The touch burned.
Alesya jerked slightly, her breath catching in her chest.
But she didn’t pull away.
The tips of Revan’s fingers tucked that wet strand of hair behind Alesya’s ear, letting the back of his hand caress the woman’s jawline, which was smooth as silk.
An incredibly gentle touch from a man used to destroying everything that stood in his way.
“You carry too much burden alone, Alesya,” Revan whispered hoarsely, his voice sounding like a forbidden prayer in the darkness.
Revan tilted his body, cutting the remaining distance between them until their scents merged into one.
Revan’s broad chest pressed against Alesya’s arm.
Alesya could feel the man’s heart beating fast and heavy behind his black t-shirt.
Revan’s gray eyes lowered, locking onto Alesya’s wet, slightly parted lips.
“Revan…” Alesya whispered, her voice trembling between a plea for the man to stop and a wild desperation for him to never let go.
“Tell me to stop,” Revan whispered in front of the woman’s lips.
The man’s hot breath burned Alesya’s skin.
“Say it now, Alesya.
Before I do something that will make us both burn to ashes.”
Alesya looked into the man’s eyes.
In Revan’s gray pupils, there was no longer an arrogant billionaire.
No fiancée Victoria Ashworth.
There was only a wounded, lonely man thirsty for a soulful touch.
Alesya opened her lips to speak.
But the words of rejection never left her throat.
The distance between their lips eroded to one millimeter…
CRACK!
A giant flash of bright blue lightning exploded in the night sky, illuminating the entire interior of the barn with blinding light for a split second.
Followed by a thunderclap so massive that the concrete floor beneath their feet shook violently.
CLICK!
All the wall lights in the barn instantly went out completely.
Power outage.