Chapter 1: Coming home to trouble

The taxi stopped in front of my father’s house, the same cream-painted duplex I’d grown up in, but for some reason it felt… smaller. Or maybe I felt bigger. Older. Different.

I stepped out, dragging my suitcase behind me. It had been a year since I left for school, and even though I told myself I wasn’t nervous, my heart betrayed me—thumping against my ribs like it wanted to run back into the taxi.

I wasn’t ready.

Not for my father’s judgment.

Not for the cold way he always managed to make me feel like I wasn’t enough.

I exhaled, forcing a smile. “You’re home, Amara. Nothing scary.”

I climbed the stairs to the front door and pressed the doorbell.

Footsteps.

Heavy ones.

Not my father’s.

The door swung open.

And I forgot how to breathe.

Adrian Cole stood there.

My father’s best friend.

The man I used to admire from afar.

The man who accidentally became the standard for every crush I ever had.

He was older now—God, so much older and finer. His once-clean haircut was a little messy in that careless, heartbreakingly handsome way. A neatly trimmed beard framed his sharp jaw, and his black T-shirt did absolutely nothing to hide the strong body beneath.

His eyes landed on me, widening slightly before something softer—almost dangerous—crossed them.

“Amara.”

His deep voice wrapped around my name like it belonged to him.

I forced my lips into a smile. “Hi, Adrian.”

My suitcase suddenly weighed nothing and everything at the same time.

He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, muscles flexing like a silent showoff. “What are you doing here? I thought you were still in school.”

“I graduated.”

I swallowed. “And my dad asked me to come home.”

He blinked slowly, a hint of surprise under his calm expression. “Already? That’s… fast. It feels like you left yesterday.”

No, it didn’t.

It felt like a lifetime.

A lifetime spent trying to forget that I used to blush every time he visited. That I used to watch him laugh with my father and wonder what his smile would look like if he ever aimed it fully at me.

I finally found my voice. “You look… different.”

He lifted a brow. “Good different?”

Heat crawled up my neck. “Yes.”

His lips curled into the kind of smile that could ruin a girl’s good sense. “You look different too. Taller. More grown.”

The way he said grown made my stomach drop.

Before I could reply, he stepped aside and gestured for me to come in.

I walked past him, and his scent—woody, clean, masculine—wrapped around me like warm hands on my waist. My body reacted before my mind could stop it.

I almost tripped.

“Careful,” he said behind me, his hand brushing my arm for balance.

Just a question: why did electricity shoot straight through me from one tiny touch?

The living room looked the same, except for a few suitcases stacked in the corner. Men’s shoes by the door. A laptop on the couch. A jacket thrown lazily over a chair.

“You’re… staying here?” I asked.

“Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Just for a while. Your dad insisted.”

Of course he did.

My father worshipped Adrian. If Adrian wanted the roof, the tiles, and the land papers, my father would hand them over with pure joy.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Adrian added, watching me closely.

Mind?

I was trying not to combust.

“It’s fine,” I lied.

The front door clicked again.

My father entered, smiling when he saw us. “Amara! You’re home.”

He hugged me like someone greeting an old friend, not their only child. His eyes then slid to Adrian.

“You two have met again,” Dad said proudly. “Good. I wanted her to have company.”

Adrian’s eyes flicked to mine briefly, something unreadable settling in them. “She isn’t a child anymore, Emeka.”

My father chuckled. “Tell me about it.”

That comment shouldn’t have made my toes curl. But it did.

After some small talk, my father went upstairs, leaving me alone with Adrian in the living room.

He leaned back against the wall, arms folded, observing me with a slower, deeper intensity than before. “So… how long are you back for?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said honestly. “Maybe a few months.”

His jaw tightened, like that answer bothered him in some way he wasn’t allowed to show.

There was a pause. A long one. The kind that stretched and stretched until the silence itself felt intimate.

“Amara,” he began, voice low, “you’ve changed a lot.”

I blinked. “Is that a good thing?”

He stepped closer—not touching me, but close enough that my breath caught.

“I don’t know,” he murmured. “I’m still… figuring it out.”

My heart thumped loudly. I wasn’t imagining the tension. It was real. Heavy. Pulling us toward something neither of us was supposed to want.

Then—as if he sensed how close we were to crossing a line—he stepped back abruptly.

“I should, uh… check something outside,” he muttered and walked away.

I exhaled, knees weak.

Coming home was supposed to be simple.

But Adrian being here?

Living under the same roof?

Looking at me like that?

It was the beginning of a beautiful disaster.

And I could already feel myself falling.