A flicker of acknowledgment passed between them, the smallest thread of understanding. And yet something still hovered unspoken between them.
He looked away first, his gaze drifting toward the horizon. “Some things aren’t ready to be named.”
“But they’re there,” she said. “Aren’t they?”
He met her eyes again, and the pause between them held more than words could carry.
“Quinton.” Her voice was low. “Why won’t you tell me what you know?”
He didn’t answer immediately. The breeze tugged at the hem of her coat. “I don’t want to bring you into something dangerous,” he said finally.
“You think I’m not already in it?”
His jaw tightened.
“I’m not made of glass, you know,” she added, softer now.
“No,” he said. “You’re made of fire. You shine so brightly, sometimes I think you don’t realize it burns.”
She blinked.
He turned to face her fully. His gaze was steady. “That’s why I worry. Because you’ll walk straight into the flame to see what’s burning.”
She hadn’t meant for it to happen. But since the moment he stepped into her entrance hall, tired, changed, and alive, something inside her had been drifting toward the flame. She hadn’t stopped it, and she didn’t want to.
She tried to smile, but it faltered. “I thought I lost you.”
“You didn’t.”
Her hand lifted, hovering for a breath before she touched his sleeve. She didn’t say more, not about the past or what they’d lost. The ache in her chest was answer enough.
The silence was different now, dense and full of words they weren’t brave enough to say yet.
She leaned in first. Or perhaps he did. Later, she wouldn’t be sure.
Their second kiss was not hesitant. It wasn’t rushed. It bloomed like something inevitable, forged from nights of silence and days of aching possibility. His hand found her waist, drawing her just close enough to feel the echo of her breath. Her fingers curled into the lapel of his coat, not to steady herself, but to hold onto something she hadn’t realized she’d missed.
The kiss was firm and unguarded, a quiet collision of longing and recognition. It deepened as he tilted his head, and her lips parted without fear. It was not a question. It was a vow.
There had been a time when she thought this part of herself was gone, the part that felt deeply, without fear. But he had brought it back with nothing more than a look, a silence, a kiss that said everything neither of them dared name. It wasn’t new. It was old, aching, and inevitable.
He remembered the first kiss, windy and stolen in the hush of morning, her lips trembling with more surprise than certainty. This one was different. She met him fully now. No tremble. Just heat.
And for one long moment, they forgot the world entirely.
She stepped back slowly, her breath uneven.
“We can’t keep doing that,” she said.
“Then tell me to stop.”
She didn’t. Not yet. Not when it still felt like the truth.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Wednesday morning, suspicionsat heavier than the fog beyond the windows. Mary-Ann had no proof. No confession. No names. Only the weight of instinct, sharpened by ledger entries and half-truths. And now, one more whisper: the cave.
The choice to go alone wasn’t made lightly. But if she’d learned anything over the past weeks, it was that no one else would show her the truth. Rodney thought she was best suited for drawing rooms and decorum. Barrington believed secrets were best held behind closed doors. And Quinton—
