But it was. Sitting on his sofa as if he owned the place, with one arm draped along the back cushion, legs casually crossed, was Callum Reid. As though he belonged there. As if he hadn’t broken Jude piece by piece and been put away before the cracks could heal.
The chill hit Jude slowly, then all at once. Cold and crawling.
He was out.
He washere.
How the hell had he even got inside?
That was always the worst thing about Callum. The not knowing. How he got into places, into moments, intohim. Into Jude’s head. His space. His body. And whether, on some level, Jude had let him. It was that eerie dislocation. The way reality smudged around the edges. The slippery gap between memory and mistake. BetweenI didn’tandmaybe I did.
But there he was. Not a memory. Not a shadow. Real. Present.
And he stood. Moved through the living room and drew the curtains without asking, switching on the light. He whistled under his breath, low and casual, scanning the shelves Jude had built with his own hands, skimming his fingers over the second-hand books Jude had hunted for at weekend markets, and tapping a scatter cushion from the mismatched pair he’d found at the little seafront shop, the ones the old woman had called “rescued fabrics.” Patchworked. Imperfect. Beautiful.
Things Jude had chosen forhimself.
Jude stood motionless near the front door, one hand braced on the wooden frame, heart thudding.
This cottage was meant to be safe. His.
Exposed beams, uneven floorboards, the faint scent of lavender oil he rubbed into the radiator to keep the rooms soft and warm. It wasn’t much, but it had been enough. More than enough. It had been freedom. Earned through silence and solitude and learning how to sleep without flinching.
But now Callum returned to sit on his sofa, stretching out his leg, one ankle hooked over the other, and throwing his arms along the backrest as if he hadn’t once used that posture to box Jude in.
A man finally settling into a space he considered his by right.
“Nice place.” Callum tapped the arm of the sofa, right where one of the handmade cushions sat. “You’ve done well for yourself. Very rustic. Masculine, but… gentle. Is that a real log burner?”
Jude said nothing.
Silence was safer. It always had been.
Callum drifted his gaze to the bookshelf, a smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Knew you’d land on your feet. Even after everything.” He paused long enough to let the weight ofeverythingsettle between them. “Still reading all that history bollocks?”
Jude stayed mute.
Because he knew what happened if he spoke. If he gave even an inch. Callum would seize it and twist whatever Jude said into something else. Something that sounded like consent. Agreement. Affection.
Callum didn’t need permission. Just an opening.
“You look good, Lamb.”
The endearment hit like a slap wrapped in velvet.
Bile crept up Jude’s throat, sour and fast, but he swallowed it down and closed his eyes. Long enough to imagine waking from this. To pretend this was one ofthosedreams. The ones leaving him tangled in sheets and sweat, pulse thudding with remembered fear.
But when he opened his eyes, Callum was still there.
Smiling.
Winning.
“Cute glasses, too.”
Compliments from Callum were never harmless. They were laced with intention. Soft at first but always sharp at the edges. Silk over broken glass. They arrived like gifts but opened like traps. Jude had learned that the hard way.
He swallowed the impulse to step back, forced himself to stay rooted.
