For the first time, caution flickered in her like a match lighting. The flicker wasn’t born of trauma. Even so, she responded instantly. Stepping away, she let her hands slide tenderly from his face and drop to her sides. She looked toward her office, seeing nothing.
Why the caution?
Because she was starting to want a relationship with him. Persistently and stubbornly. Almost rebelliously. She’d always considered a real relationship between them as hopeless, but did it have to be?
Maybe. No? Yes? The prospect of change frightened her. A relationship would mean sacrifices. It would mean putting herself out there. She’d need to give up some degree of her safe and secluded life here. Was she willing to do that?
The sameness of the past years had kept her mental and physical health intact. While her Islehaven existence had never brought her the type of exhilaration that kissing him brought her, it did offer more subtle rewards. She knew she’d be okay doing what she’d been doing. She didn’t know if she’d be okay if she risked her whole heart on Jeremiah.
“Did that upset you?” he asked. His color had risen but otherwise he looked much more unaffected by what had just happened than she felt.
“Not at all until right at the end,” she told him truthfully. “That said, I don’t regret a second. It was . . . revelatory.”
“How so?”
“It gave me hope that nightmares don’t necessarily have to intrude every time.”
He seemed to consider that as he nodded. “You are incredibly beautiful to me.”
She waved a hand and took another step back, unwilling to let herself internalize his words or the way he looked saying them. “You’re the dazzling one. Ask anyone.”
“I don’t care what anyone else might say. Between us, the truth is this. You’re the dazzling one.”
“Well.” She smiled. “You said you wouldn’t be grumpy afterward and you’re not grumpy.”
“No. I’m not grumpy.”
It wasn’t easy to shake off the hormones. They were urging her to reach for him, to put her lips back on his lips. “Happy Halloween, Jeremiah.”
“Happy Halloween, Remy.”
She curved her hands into fists to keep them under control, then went to the kitchen and began staging dinner. Just how tricky was it going to be to re-institute normalcy between them? “Let’s eat!”
He seemed to understand her wish to switch topics and began unpacking a bag of dinner groceries. “Let’s eat.”
Remy had no idea what she’d just done to him.
She’d never be able to understand how much he cared about her or the depth of the effect she had on him. It had felt, leaning there against the table, as if he’d waited more than a lifetime for the feel of her hands on him. For those kisses.
It had been hard to remain motionless and, on the other hand, easy. With her history, there was no way that he’d have done anything to jeopardize her trust in him. He’d called on the self-control some said he’d once been famous for and devoted himself to watching her. He’d seen every flicker of change on her features, every shift of her posture.
Those scorching seconds had made him believe in a future for them.
They ate dinner, talking in their usual way about the usual things. Yet something new lived between them. It was as if a curtain had been pulled back, revealing unseen territory. And also on her end, he sensed, fresh worries.
After dinner, they settled on the couch together to watch a show. In the past, they’d taken opposite ends. Tonight, she sat close enough to rest her head on his shoulder. Her side was pressed to his side. He carefully—not wanting to startle her—wrapped his arm around her.
She chose a weird fantasy TV series filled with characters who had unpronounceable names. No cable here, so they watched on her computer. The show buffered every fifteen minutes or so thanks to her spotty Wi-Fi. He didn’t understand anything happening onscreen.
And none of that mattered.
Not when contentment was swelling so strongly inside, filling every edge and corner of him.
Fiona sat inside the study of her fairytale house, doing a non-fairytale thing. Finishing draft fourteen of her letter to Isobel.
She’d written drafts that were pages and pages long. Drafts that contained self-deprecation. Drafts that detailed memories of things she and Isobel had done together.
She nudged her reading glasses higher on her nose and read over what she’d written this time around.
