“She wanted me out of the way.”
“She wanted me,” he corrected. “Or rather, she wanted the idea of me, which is infinitely worse.”
Despite everything, a faint laugh escaped Jillian. “And now she has locked her hopes in a cold, abandoned room with her rival. The irony is rather impressive.”
“I am not impressed,” Miles said dryly. “But I will concede it is poetic.”
They fell silent again. Jillian listened to the rhythm of his breaths—slow, steady, punctuated by the occasional faint tremor that betrayed how chilled he truly was. She felt each one along her back and shoulders, felt the steady rise and fall beneath her cheek, and somewhere between the shivers and the exhaustion, a peculiar sense of calm began to replace the panic.
She did not want to examine that calm too closely.
“We cannot stay awake all night,” she murmured after a long while.
“No,” Miles agreed. “But if either of us falls asleep, we risk… this.”
He did not elaborate, but the meaning was clear: waking in each other’s arms was a far graver scandal than choosing warmth out of necessity. Jillian swallowed hard, feeling her pulse flutter in ways no amount of logic could fully steady.
“Do not think too much on it,” she said softly. “We have survived worse.”
“Have we?” Miles asked, sounding genuinely doubtful. “I am not certain anything we have endured compares to this.”
She wanted to joke, wanted to deflect, wanted to push him back into their familiar rhythm of irritation and distance. Butshe could not find the strength. Her limbs were heavy, her eyelids heavier still, and the cold had seeped deep enough into her bones that the warmth at her side felt like the only lifeline she possessed.
“Just…” She shifted closer—purely out of necessity, she insisted to herself—and closed her eyes. “Just do not let me freeze.”
“I will not let anything happen to you,” Miles said, so quietly she almost doubted she heard him. “Not freezing. Not… anything.”
Her pulse stuttered dangerously at the softness of his tone. It was unfamiliar. Unsettling. Far too sincere for the man she had argued with for years. Yet she did not pull away.
She could not.
The cold pressed around them; the night dragged on; the faint creaks of the old house marked the passage of time. Eventually, exhaustion won. Jillian drifted into a light, uneasy sleep, curled into Miles’s warmth, his shared coat tucked around them both along with the dusty, borrowed drapes. She was aware, just faintly, of his hand resting protectively at her waist, steadying her whenever she shifted, as though even in sleep he could not entirely abandon the instinct to keep her safe.
She knew they would be found. She knew the consequences. She knew the risk.
But in that suspended moment, half-dreaming in the quiet dark, she felt only the steady rise and fall of his breath and the disorienting safety of it.
And she feared—very deeply—that this mistake might not be one her heart easily recovered from.
Miles had never imaginedhe would spend an evening pressed against Jillian Hale, sharing warmth in a room so cursedly cold it might have been carved from ice. He had certainly never imagined doing so voluntarily. And yet, as night settled over Fairhaven and their predicament stretched into hours rather than the hoped for minutes, his priorities shifted in ways he found both startling and deeply concerning.
He had begun the evening irritated. Then he had progressed to alarmed. Eventually he had reached a point beyond either, a point where his body simply reacted before his thoughts could marshal themselves into coherence. Jillian had shivered—just once, a slight tremor that she tried and failed to hide—and without a word he had drawn her closer, wrapped his coat around her, and settled her against him with a protectiveness he could neither explain nor suppress.
He told himself it was necessity. He told himself it was honor. But every time her breath feathered lightly against his collar or her fingers curled unconsciously near his ribcage, he felt a pull that had nothing to do with obligation and everything to do with the complicated, unspoken truth that had been building between them for far longer than he cared to admit.
Jillian Hale had always unsettled him. Tonight, she unmade him completely.
She slept now—fitfully, lightly—her cheek against his shoulder and her hand resting near his chest. Her hair had come loose, soft waves falling across his coat and brushing the edge of his jaw. He did not dare move. He hardly dared breathe. Each inhalation drew in the faint scent of lavender, each exhalation brushed against the top of her head, and each moment held theoverwhelming awareness that he was holding her far too closely, far too willingly, for far too long. And yet, given the choice, she would have been closer still.
He looked down at her in the dimness, illuminated only by the sliver of moonlight seeping through the frosted window. She looked softer in sleep—less guarded, less sharp, less armored by the wit she wielded like a shield. He had always admired that wit, even when it was turned mercilessly upon him. Now, however, he saw vulnerability where he had expected only resolve, and the sight pierced him with a mix of tenderness and dread. Admitting that he wanted her was not nearly so difficult as accepting the fact that having her would not be by her choice but because she had no other options.
This should not be happening. It could not be happening. And yet every attempt he made to convince himself fell apart the moment she shifted against him, seeking warmth she could not help but accept. When her head slipped slightly, he steadied her instinctively, his arm settling around her shoulders to prevent the movement from waking her.
She relaxed instantly.
The trust implicit in that tiny gesture struck him harder than he could bear.
He closed his eyes, fighting the swell of emotion rising far too quickly. He was not a man prone to sentiment. He did not indulge in fancies or romantic notions. But tonight, with Jillian tucked against him, with the weight of responsibility and the echo of their earlier, near-kiss lingering between them like a ghost, he wondered how he had ever believed their dislike was genuine.
