The Seductive Pretty Chapter 105: Sneaking In

Chapter 105: Chapter 105: Sneaking In

Chapter 105: Sneaking In

"Calmed down now?"

With one light tap of his thumb, Elias stopped the recording. The little waveform vanished from the screen, and the file saved itself to his phone.

Then he smiled again.

Without the glasses, every change in his expression landed harder than it should have. He was still beautiful in a way that could make people forget themselves, but to Lila Morgan, sitting frozen behind the wheel, that smile no longer looked sweet or tempting. It looked like something a devil would wear right before asking whether you had anything left to say in your own defense.

Her body started shaking again.

A few minutes ago, that trembling had come from excitement, from nerves, from the stupid heat that had rushed to her head and made her forget who she was and what kind of person sat beside her. Now it came from a fear so physical it made her skin crawl. She felt as if insects were moving over her face, and no matter how lovely Elias looked in the dim light of the car, the sight of him had become something her body read as danger.

Elias watched her for a moment and then sighed.

"It doesn’t look like you were actually ready."

That was the whole problem with people like Lila. Give them too much to eat, too much comfort, too much fantasy, and the wrong thoughts started breeding in their heads. She had let desire run wild for a few reckless minutes, but desire was a weak thing the moment real risk entered the picture.

The car had gone so quiet that her breathing sounded ugly inside it. Every inhale was rough and wet, like someone who had just been dragged back above water after nearly drowning.

Elias lifted one hand.

His fingertips were cool when they touched her skin. He slid two fingers under her chin and tilted her face up.

Lila could have pulled away easily. All she had to do was lean back a few inches, turn her head, raise a hand, anything. He was smaller than her, lighter than her, and not holding her with real force. Yet she did not move. It was as though something in her had gone numb. She only stared at him because he had made her do it.

The moment her eyes lifted, she found herself trapped by his.

His gaze was quiet, bright, and steady in a way that made resistance feel pointless. It was not dramatic. He was not glaring. That only made it worse. It felt like he had already looked through every excuse she could make, every dirty thought she had entertained, every pathetic calculation she had tried to justify to herself.

Still holding her there, he said in a level voice, "Once you drop me off at the Blackwood residence, you don’t need to follow me anymore."

Then he let go.

Right in front of her, he opened the recording file and deleted it.

His thumb moved once. The file was gone.

When he looked at her again, his tone had turned almost gentle.

"Now drive."

[Lila could still come after you.]

System Theta had held back until the car started moving again, but the question came out quickly once the tires were rolling.

[Why did you delete the recording? What if she tries something again?]

She won’t. Elias leaned back in the passenger seat, his voice mild with the kind of certainty that left no room for argument. Even if I stripped naked in front of her right now, she wouldn’t dare look at me twice. The second she got her head clear, she had already measured the value of getting me against the value of keeping her life.

He watched the city slide past the window, then added, I never misread people. If she had really dared touch me just now, then she would’ve qualified as a target. Only women like them have that kind of nerve.

He let out a small laugh.

Besides, the recording was useless anyway. It didn’t catch any of the interesting part. I only turned it on at the very end.

Lila, thrown off balance by panic and lust and fear, had not noticed that detail. Someone in her state was never going to check the exact timestamp before deciding she had been cornered.

System Theta sounded awed.

[As expected of you.]

To the system, Lila had ended up looking less like a person than a toy someone had picked up, wound once, and then discarded after losing interest.

By the time the last piece of Elias’s luggage was set down on the spotless floor of the Blackwood residence, Lila Morgan’s role in his day had ended completely.

He did not look at her again.

She did not even count as a proper interruption in his mind. At most, she had been a brief inconvenience on the drive over.

His attention was already elsewhere. He watched the household staff carry his bags upstairs, following them to the second floor and into the room Serena had assigned him.

He stepped inside and took in the space with one slow glance.

Then he nodded to himself.

The room had its own bathroom.

That mattered more than almost anything else. If he woke up in the middle of the night and needed to use it, he would not have to leave the room and wander down a hallway half-asleep.

On that point alone, the room was already scoring high.

"All right," he said, turning to the staff with a polite smile. "Just leave everything on the floor. I like organizing my own things."

He dipped his chin. "Thanks."

They withdrew quietly after that.

The door clicked shut.

The second they were gone, Elias spun once, took two quick steps, and threw himself straight onto the bed.

The mattress swallowed him whole.

He sank down so far and so fast that for a moment he almost laughed. It was absurdly soft, the kind of expensive softness that made ordinary beds feel like punishment by comparison. He turned his face into the bedding and inhaled.

There was a clean scent there, light and expensive without being sharp.

"This thing is way too soft," he muttered. "A person could ruin their spine sleeping on this."

He stayed there for another second, then added, "It’d probably be great for sex, though."

System Theta did not answer.

At this point, it had been forced into a kind of numb acceptance. It was genuinely grateful for its low operating level and for whatever internal safeguards kept it from being damaged by the full force of Elias’s more shameless thoughts.

A moment later, Elias remembered something and rolled onto his back.

"By the way," he said, "can you control my phone?"

System Theta paused.

[I don’t know.]

"Try."

Even now, the system still felt new enough to take instructions seriously.

It made an attempt.

The phone lying beside Elias on the bed suddenly lit up. The screen unlocked. Apps opened and closed in quick succession. A messaging window flashed up, then disappeared, then came back again as the system tested its control.

[I can.] The surprise in its voice was obvious. [I really can.]

Elias’s eyes brightened.

"I knew it."

He sat up a little, propping himself on one elbow as he looked at the phone. "You know how to send messages, right?"

Another pause.

[I do.]

Something in the system had already started to feel uneasy.

Elias smiled at once. "Great. From now on, you’re handling messages with the scumbag women. Just make sure everything fits the persona I use with each of them."

System Theta seemed to blank out for a second.

[What about you?]

"I need rest," Elias said with complete seriousness.

He had eaten well. He had moved into a rich woman’s house. Under those conditions, the correct next step in life was obviously sleep.

System Theta started panicking.

[I can’t do that. I won’t know what to say.]

"I believe in you." Elias’s face had gone solemn, his tone warm with encouragement. "This is the path every good system has to walk if it wants to become a high-level one. You can do it. There’s no reason you should be worse than any other system."

System Theta was stunned.

[Really?]

It had clearly never imagined Elias might place this kind of trust in it.

Elias did not even blink. "I can see your potential. Once you grow properly, you’ll be even better than System Echo."

That did it.

The system straightened up at once, full of fresh confidence.

[Understood. Leave it to me.]

Elias nodded in satisfaction. "Good."

Inside, he was already amused.

New systems were so easy to fool. They still responded to the most basic kind of flattery. Echo had stopped falling for this level of nonsense a long time ago.

He settled deeper into the mattress, shut his eyes, and left System Theta to handle the women for him.

He slept hard.

So hard that the break in his sleep came not as a gradual stirring but as a clean snap of awareness somewhere inside his mind.

The sound that woke him was faint.

A door opening.

It was quiet enough that most people would have slept through it, but Elias caught it immediately.

System Theta, realizing someone had entered, tried to warn him.

[Hos...]

Quiet, Elias said. I’m awake.

The system went still in confusion.

If it had asked, Elias would have explained that this was the kind of useless survival skill a person picked up after too many worlds and too many bad nights. Horror worlds taught lessons fast. After enough time spent waking to ghosts climbing into bed with you and treating your body like public property, hearing danger in your sleep stopped being talent and turned into instinct.

The figure moving through the darkness crossed the room without hurry.

Bare feet.

He could hear the soft contact of skin against the floorboards. No shoes, which meant planning. Whoever this was had not wandered in by accident.

By the time that person reached the bed, Elias had already identified her.

Rose.

The scent was faint, but unmistakable. Not powdery, not sweet in any childish way. Clean rose, expensive and low to the skin.

Liora.

He kept pretending to sleep.

Then, as if in response to some dream, he turned over naturally onto his side.

Only after shifting did he open his eyes.

There she was, standing beside the bed in the dark.

For a second they only looked at each other.

No one spoke. The room was quiet except for the thin sound of breathing, hers and his. The air between them felt close, like the inside of a secret already half-kept.

Elias spoke first.

His voice came out soft and rough with sleep, lazy in the way only a genuinely interrupted sleeper could manage.

"You snuck in here to fool around with me..."

Liora lowered her voice too, as though there really might be someone else in the room listening from the dark.

"Yes," she said, and laughed under her breath.

[Liora Voss favorability increased. Current favorability: 61%.]