Chapter 505: His Goddess: "Phei~"

Hand flew to her mouth. Then she laughed — shaky, bright, half mortified, half euphoric delirium.

Phei capped the marker. Handed it back with that same calm amusement.

"Tell your daughter I said hi," he said, voice warm enough to melt steel. "And that she’s got excellent taste in posters."

Catherine nodded — still staring at the signature like it might speak to her — then dragged her eyes back up to his face, looking like a woman who’d just been quietly ruined in the best possible way.

"Is the Madam in?"

Catherine blinked. Hard. Like someone had just rebooted her operating system.

The professionalism clawed its way back up from whatever abyss it had fallen into. It made it about halfway before choking on its own embarrassment and stalling out completely.

"She—she

yes

, she’s—oh.

Oh

. Right. Yes. I’m supposed to—you’re here to see—"

From behind the heavy office door came a voice.

Clear. Controlled. The exact frequency a woman uses when she wants to remind solid mahogany who’s actually in charge.

"Catherine. What’s going on out there?"

Catherine’s mouth opened to answer—

Phei stopped her with one gentle hand. A small shake of his head.

No words needed.

He stepped past the desk like it wasn’t even there, reached for the handle, and opened the door himself.

The office hit like a religious experience.

Floor-to-ceiling glass on two full walls—not the warm amber glow he remembered from last time, but something colder, vaster, like walking straight into a cathedral carved from midnight and starlight.

The windows soared double-height, ceiling rippling with reflected city light that danced across the surface like the room was sunk at the bottom of an illuminated sea.

White marble floors so polished they mirrored everything back at you—white sofas, white chairs, a long white dining table—all arranged with the ruthless elegance of someone who knew empty space could be weaponised.

Crystal chandeliers dripped from above in slow, cascading tiers, fracturing the city’s glow into ten thousand cold, perfect pinpricks.

A central glass pillar shimmered floor-to-ceiling, bending blue night-light into living prisms that crawled slow and hypnotic across the marble.

At this hour, lights

dimmed

to almost nothing, the whole room drowned in the colour of the sky outside—deep indigo bleeding to black at the edges, everything pale and dreamlike and suspended between earth and void.

Less an office.

More a throne room floating above the world.

And there she stood.

Behind the far desk. Already risen from her chair. One hand still flat on the papers she’d been reading.

The other frozen at her side. Caught. Startled.

A woman who expected interruptions the way glaciers expect applause.

"Phei~?"

His name in her mouth—low, divine undertone —and underneath the control something flickered. A match struck in a pitch-black room.

"What are you doing here?"

He didn’t answer right away.

Because his brain had flatlined.

Because she was standing there bathed in blue-dark cathedral glow and she was—

fuck

—she was—

The dress was midnight charcoal. Halter neck wrapped high and tight around her throat, leaving shoulders bare—smooth, pale, catching ambient light like warmed marble. Fabric draped clean and close across her chest—medium breasts, perfectly proportional, shaped by decades of discipline instead of scalpels.

A thin gold chain hung in the open V of the halter, small pendant resting exactly where her pulse beat beneath porcelain skin.

Below the waist the dress changed languages—muted teal asymmetric wrap skirt sitting high on the thigh. Layered. Folded. Moving when she moved.

Parting just enough with every shift of weight to flash the long, sculpted line of one leg like a deliberate tease.

And her

hips

.

Phei had

gripped

hips before. Memorised them.

Worshipped

them on bodies that could stop traffic.

Hers were something else.

Not cartoon-wide and fragile-narrow. Full.

Divine feminine

. The devastating curve that only happens when a woman has lived hard, ruled harder, carried power in her bones for decades and let her body settle into the shape of quiet, inevitable command.

The fabric clung to that curve like it had been poured on wet.

Every tiny shift made the skirt ripple, the hem sway, the bare thigh appear and vanish in slow, torturous intervals.

Hair down—ink-black, spilling past her shoulders, drinking the blue city light and throwing it back as silk.

One feathered earring brushing her jaw when she tilted her head. Eyes dark. Wide. Locked on him with an expression perfectly balanced between

what the hell are you doing here

and

don’t you dare leave

.

Phei’s heart was committing felonies inside his ribcage.

This woman.

His

goddess

.

He waved.

Actually fucking

waved

. Like a teenager spotting his crush in the hallway. Casual. Easy. Completely fucking insane given that his blood was on fire and his brain was

reciting love letters

it didn’t remember writing.

Then he crossed to the living area—the white sofas, the long table by the windows—and set the bag down.

She watched. Hand still glued to her papers. Mouth parted just enough to show she’d forgotten how to close it.

"I figured you’d still be working,"

he said, unzipping the bag, pulling out containers one by one. Setting them on the white surface with the careful reverence of someone who’d planned this down to the napkin fold.

"Seven o’clock. You’re always here at

seven.

Probably haven’t eaten since... noon? Earlier?"

Two proper meals. Not pretentious restaurant nonsense. Warm. Honest. From a place he’d chosen like it mattered. Utensils. Napkins.

A bottle of something sparkling and alcohol-free that caught the chandelier light like liquid mercury.

He turned to face her.

"Would you do me the honour,"

he said, voice low and steady, "of joining me for dinner, Goddess?"

Pause.

Smile.

"I’m starving too."

Her hand drifted up. Fingers pressed to her lips.

Not shock. Or not only shock.

Something softer. More dangerous. The exact expression of a woman who’d spent decades building fortress walls around her heart and was now watching a boy stroll through the rubble carrying takeaway containers and a smile that could level cities.

"Phei~"

she said again.

Softer.

His name in her mouth like something precious she’d been carrying all day—finally, carefully, allowed to rest.