“I had to,” she replied, her eyes still fixed on the frost-laced window. “The room felt—too close… like it was pressing in around me.”
He approached slowly, giving her space even as he closed the distance between them. “The room,” he murmured, “or the feelings?”
She let out a shaky breath. “Both.”
He stopped just behind her—close enough that she felt the warmth of him through her gown but not close enough to touch.
“Look at me,” he said softly.
She turned.
His mask was gone. Hers was still in place, making her feel somehow both bolder and more exposed.
Miles reached up and brushed his fingers lightly along the ribbon at her temple. “May I?”
Her heart answered before she did, thrumming with an eager, reckless yes.
She nodded.
He loosened the knot, lifted the mask away, and set it carefully aside. When his eyes returned to hers—unshielded, unguarded—she felt her breath stutter.
There was no teasing there. No wariness. No armor.
Only truth.
“I meant what I said,” he murmured. “Every word.”
She swallowed. “And which part, exactly, are we addressing, Mr. Fairfax? The part where you said we should stoppretending? Or the part where you confessed to feelings you have not yet named?”
Her mask joined his, dangling discardedly from his fingertips before falling to the floor. “Those have no place between us ever again… and free of subterfuge, I can name those feelings now,” he said, stepping closer—not presuming, but offering. “Love, Jillian.”
The word struck through her with the clarity of a bell.
“Love?”
“It sounds simple, doesn’t it? Four small letters. And yet, within the confines of that word’s definition exists everything else—desire, passion, need, trust… hope. Love is everything, Jillian. And love is what I have for you.” Miles seemed to gather courage as he watched her reaction. “I love you. I think I have for far longer than I understood. Perhaps from the first time you insulted my vocabulary. Perhaps from the first time I accused you of being insufferably arrogant and you thanked me for noticing.”
Her lips parted in astonishment.
“I fought it,” he continued, voice low and steady. “I fought you. Every time we argued, every time you bested me, every time you ignored me with perfect indifference—I felt something I did not know how to name. Something that unsettled me. Disturbed me. Pulled me toward you even while I pushed you away.”
He paused, searching her expression.
“And now,” he finished quietly, “I am very tired of fighting what has been true all along.”
Jillian’s vision blurred for a moment—emotion, pure and stinging, rising too fast for her to contain.
“Oh, Miles,” she whispered. “You ridiculous, impossible man.”
She lifted her hand to his cheek, her thumb brushing the faint shadow of stubble there. He closed his eyes at the touch as if it undid him.
“You think you were the only one fighting?” she murmured. “I argued with you because I could not bear how much I noticed you. I mocked you because I could not bear how much you mattered to me. Every barb we exchanged was a way to avoid admitting the truth.”
His eyes opened—bright, intent, unbearably tender.
“And what is the truth?” he asked.
She took a trembling breath. “That I love you. That I have loved you—quietly, helplessly, foolishly—for far longer than I ever intended. That wanting you terrifies me. And that losing you would ruin me in ways I cannot even articulate.”
