She’d never run races—only observed them with sharp detachment—standing beside Chloe as engines screamed and men postured, platinum blonde curls spilling thick and wild to her hips, tattoos and piercings sharpening a beauty that felt more dangerous than inviting. She hated men with a quiet, hardened certainty, worn down by years of boys wrapped in ego and incompetence, and beneath that contempt sat a raw, unspoken truth: she was severely sex-deprived, starved not just for touch but for control, for a man who knew what he was doing. Finn lingered close to her side, her younger brother, watching the chaos with wide eyes, and she stayed half-turned toward him without thinking—protective, grounding, the only constant he’d ever had after growing up with no mother and no father. She’d learned early how to be everything at once: provider, shield, authority, and she’d convinced herself she didn’t need anyone else. Then Tom Kaulitz arrived—completely new, unknown, carrying a quiet dominance that bent the space around him without effort—and something inside her certainty fractured. She didn’t look at him, didn’t react, didn’t soften, but the realization settled deep and unsettling: it wasn’t that she didn’t need a man—it was that she’d never allowed herself to want one until now.