No website. No menu. No photos.
Just a name, spoken in certain circles: a secret not meant for outsiders.
Her fingers hovered over the card’s edge, tracing it absently, as if its texture might unlock answers she couldn’t seem to find within herself.
Could she uproot everything for a man who might only be toying with her?
Gideon Blackwell wasn’t just enigmatic; he was unnerving. Magnetic. Danger, dressed as a dare. Her first instinct had been to walk away.
Silverbranch was familiar, not home. She knew its edges and silences, the tired rhythm of a place that never asked her to grow.
New York City? That was stepping into uncertainty. A storm she couldn’t shape.
And she wasn’t the kind of woman who thrived on uncertainty.
Then again, when had she ever truly belonged anywhere?
Her jaw tightened. Arms folded across her chest. Comfort had never belonged to her. Not as a child. Certainly not as an adult.
What she’d called her comfort zone wasn’t comfort at all; it was necessity. Acocoon she’d spun for survival. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe she’d learned to survive too well. The thought scraped against something raw as her focus drifted back to the card. Temptation moved through her, smoke-soft and suffocating.
She should throw it away—cut the tether before it pulled tighter.
But that quieter voice, the one that always asked the harder questions, whispered the one she hadn’t dared say aloud:What if this isn’t reckless? What if it’s exactly what I’ve been waiting for?She exhaled, more groan than sigh.
“It’s just a business card,” she muttered, as if the words could strip it of its weight. “Just a man. One conversation. Nothing more.”
But even she didn’t believe that. A card shouldn’t be this heavy. A man shouldn’t have this much power, not after everything she’d survived. And here she was, heart unsteady, breath shallow as if the ground itself had shifted.
This felt different—a door she wasn’t sure she was brave enough to open.
?
The card burned in her pocket as Arden left Dot’s a few nights later.
She hadn’t fully decided, but the pull had grown stronger with every hour. Every quiet, restless flicker of what might come next.
The gray skies overhead mirrored her unease, brimming with static and unspoken tension.
What if this was her moment? Her chance to start again?
She’d reached the edge of the lot when a voice cracked the quiet.
“Arden.”
Chad. He materialized like a regret with a name, hands jammed in his pockets, posture wound too tight to fake indifference. The second she saw him, her stomach coiled.
“Heard you’re leaving,” he said. Bitterness dragged at every syllable. “Figures. Some guy shows up and suddenly this place isn’t good enough for you.”
She didn’t answer. Didn’t flinch.
Her silence was a weapon.
He took a step closer, voice brittle. “So that’s it? You think going to the city’s gonna fix something? You think a guy in a suit makes everything better?”
Her expression didn’t change. Her tone did.
“This isn’t about him,” she said, clean and controlled. “It never was. This is about me. It always has been. You just never wanted to see it.”
