Elena's POV
As Kane walked back into the room with a bottle of champagne in one hand and two glasses in the other, I couldn't stop the flood of memories that surged through my mind. The way Ashley had entered last night, carrying that cursed bottle of wine, setting glasses on the table with a practiced grace that made me instantly uneasy. I remembered the way she moved, how she had slipped out of her dress with such shameless ease, leaving herself in nothing but her lacy panties, her eyes dark with seduction. She had laid there on the couch, waiting for Kane, her body posed as if she were some kind of offering.
It wasn't just her audacity—it was the way she had done it, the strange submissiveness in her actions, the way she positioned herself on seeing him enter the room. It wasn't the confidence of a woman teasing her equal. No, it was something darker, more unsettling, as if she were playing a role—a role she knew all too well.
