Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 38942 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 195(@200wpm)___ 156(@250wpm)___ 130(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 38942 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 195(@200wpm)___ 156(@250wpm)___ 130(@300wpm)
Like so many things in life, timing is everything.
It's late afternoon, and golden light spills through the windows of Sealed With Love, my little sanctuary in this quiet coastal town. Tourist season won't start for another month, which means these peaceful hours belong just to me and my craft.
I'm working on a commission for a local beekeeper's wedding invitations—an intricate honeybee seal that took weeks to perfect. The beeswax blend I've created for him carries subtle notes of lavender and sea salt, custom-made to reflect the coastal location of his apiary. Each seal will be unique, with tiny variations that make them artisanal rather than mass-produced.
That's what my clients pay for—the knowledge that no one else will ever have exactly what they have. Each seal carries my touch, my breath, my careful attention to the way wax behaves under different conditions.
Some days, I think I understand wax better than I understand people. Wax is predictable in its unpredictability. It tells you what it needs if you pay attention. It doesn't hide its nature or pretend to be something it isn't.
Unlike people who hide behind masks. Who present one face while concealing another.
I've had enough of watchers in my life. My foster father taught me early that eyes can violate as deeply as hands—a lesson I discovered when I found his hidden camera. I still check for lenses in unfamiliar bathrooms, still change with my back to the wall.
It's why I've kept men at a distance, never letting anyone close enough to truly see me, much less touch me. The few dates I've had ended quickly when they realized physical intimacy wasn't on the table.
No, I'm much better with wax than with people.
I'm so focused on pouring the perfect honeybee seal that I don't notice the door open. The little bell should have chimed, but it remains silent. My first clue that someone has entered is a shift in the air, like the atmosphere itself has suddenly grown heavier.
When I look up, my breath catches.
He stands just inside the doorway, so still he might be carved from stone rather than flesh. Tall—impossibly so—with broad shoulders beneath a tailored charcoal suit that speaks of old money and quiet power. His skin is olive-toned, his jaw sharp enough to cut glass, and his eyes...
His eyes are like precious onyx held to sunlight, and they're watching me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle.
I've never seen him before. I would remember a face like that.
"Can I help you?" My voice comes out steady, which seems like a miracle.
He doesn't answer immediately. Instead, he moves further into the shop, his gaze sweeping over my displays of handcrafted seals, vintage stationery, and artisan candles. His movements are measured, deliberate—a man who calculates each step before taking it.
Unlike wax, which can be molded and shaped to my will, this man seems hewn from something far more unyielding. Marble, perhaps. Or steel.
"Khlea Martell, yes?" His voice carries the faintest trace of an accent—Mediterranean, maybe Italian. And while his words are framed like a question, we both know it's not. He knows who I am while I have no idea who he is.
I nod, setting down my tools carefully. "That's me. Are you looking for a custom piece?"
Again, that strange pause. It's like he's measuring me, weighing something I can't see.
"I'm looking for you," he says finally.
Something cold slips down my spine. Not fear, exactly. Something else. Something older and more primal—like recognition.
"I don't understand." I wipe my hands on my apron, leaving faint red smudges from the wax I'd been working with. "Do I know you?"
"No." One word, clipped and certain. "But I know you."
I should be reaching for my phone. I should be asking him to leave. Instead, I find myself fascinated by the contradiction of him—the rigid control in his posture against the heat banked in his eyes.
"Is this some kind of joke?" I ask, glancing toward the windows, half-expecting to see friends with cameras. But the street outside is empty, bathed in late afternoon shadows.
He moves closer to my workbench, and I instinctively take a step back. Not because I'm afraid, though maybe I should be. It's because he radiates an energy that's almost overwhelming up close—like standing too near an open flame.
My fingers instinctively curl around the edge of my worktable, seeking the familiar comfort of my tools, my space, my world. Here, I know precisely how much pressure to apply, exactly when to ease back. Here, I am in control.
With this stranger's eyes on me, I feel anything but.
"Your craft is beautiful," he says, picking up one of my finished seals—a compass rose design I'd completed earlier. His fingers, long and strong, handle the delicate piece with surprising gentleness. "You create permanent marks on impermanent things."
The observation is so unexpected that I blink. "That's... poetic."