Michael's laugh came out tight, almost forced. "So it was you. Alfred's ghost in high heels. Leila's heartbreak on shuffle. You turned my song into the knife."
Synvie's fingers traced the rim of her coffee cup, slow and deliberate. "Don't be so dramatic, Michael. I didn't break their hearts. I just gave them the soundtrack."
His jaw tightened. "You're proud of that?"
"I'm proud of being honest," she shot back, her voice smooth but sharp as glass.
"Someone had to say what Alfred wouldn't. Someone had to make Leila finally listen."
Michael leaned in, irritation flashing in his eyes.
"And you think that someone is you? A playlist doesn't make you a prophet, Synvie. It makes you a meddler."
Synvie met his glare, unflinching, lips curving with that same maddening calm.
"Funny... I thought you, of all people, would understand the power of a song. But maybe you're too busy chasing your own echo to hear it."
He smirked, though it was more a defense than victory. "Careful. I don't break easy."
"Neither do I," she said, her sunglasses sliding back into place like a final move on a chessboard. "That's why you're irritated. And that's why you can't stop listening."
Michael sat back, exhaling slowly, irritation burning under his skin, but so did the pull.
Damn her.
He couldn't decide if he wanted to walk away or follow her to the ends of the earth.
Synvie Taylor. The very woman who had haunted Alfred, dismantled Leila, and now—somehow, had him dangling on the edge of her mystery.
Michael's fingers tapped against the table, a restless rhythm betraying his calm façade. "You play a dangerous game, Synvie. Alfred, Leila... they weren't pawns. They were people."
Synvie tilted her head, the faintest smile tugging at her lips.
"Every song needs players, Michael. You know that. Verse, chorus, bridge, none of it works alone."
"Except I'm not interested in being another track on your album."
His voice carried steel, but underneath it was something dangerously close to curiosity.
She leaned forward just enough that he caught the scent of her perfume—something expensive, sharp, almost predatory.
"Then don't be a track," she murmured. "Be the producer. Take control. Unless, of course, you're afraid of what you might create with me."
For a split second, his mind betrayed him with the image: their names, their voices, tangled together in something unstoppable. A collaboration...or a catastrophe.
He forced a laugh, low and unconvincing.
"Afraid? No. But I've seen what happens to people who get too close to your sound. Alfred's ghost is still howling, and Leila's... well, she's just an echo now."
Synvie's sunglasses caught the light as she rose from her chair, every movement deliberate, like she knew the weight of leaving him hanging.
She placed a bill on the table, her nails tapping it once, twice, like a closing note.
"You'll figure it out, Michael," she said softly. "Whether you want to run from me... or write with me."
And just like that, she was gone! Heels clicking against the café floor, leaving him with nothing but the key in his pocket, the bitterness on his tongue, and the maddening question of whether she was the storm he should resist... or the one he was born to chase.
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