Page 104 of Sweet Nightmare

Because of a woman who looks like she could freeze a man to death with a single glance.

I lift my head from my phone and find Artemis is still glaring at the screen.

I almost laugh.

Of all the things that could have dragged me out of this creative fucking grave, it had to be her.

Another lyric hits.

I type it.

Then another.

The words keep coming, and I can’t stop the grin pulling at my mouth.

For the first time in two years, I don’t feel like a man trying to remember how to do his job.

I feel like Khaos.

The one who used to walk into a studio with nothing but a beat in his head and leave with something that made the whole damn room go silent. The one who loved music before it became a business, before the contracts and the expectations and the endless pressure to prove he hadn’t lost whatever made him worth listening to. The one I thought I’d buried somewhere along the way.

And all it took was one goddamn Ice Princess.

Outside, the guard has finally had enough. She grabs Artemis by the arm and gestures toward the mansion with a look that suggests she’s second away from murdering her own client.

I shake my head as I watch Artemis argue.

Unbelievable.

The bodyguard says something that must finally get through to her, because the insanely stubborn princess gives one last furious look at her phone before allowing herself to be dragged toward the terrace doors.

The faint smile I caught earlier is gone.

Now she’s back to having no expression on her face. Cold. Empty.

I watch her until she disappears inside and until I’m left standing in the dark with a phone full of lyrics and a feeling I haven’t experienced in so long that I almost don’t recognize it.

Real, undeniable inspiration.

Artemis Volpe has been in Winter Storm for a few hours.

A few fucking hours.

And somehow, she’s given me more music than six producers have managed to pull out of me in two years.

She has no idea she just gave me the first real song I’ve written in years.

And she’ll never find out.

I look down at the lyrics staring back at me.

Heart made of ice. Winter on her skin.

I swallow.

Then let out a quiet, disbelieving laugh.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”