Arden tossed a bar towel over her shoulder with a smirk. “Why yes, Marco. I am. And no, I don’t need anyone’s permission to walk in like I own it.”
Fatima breezed past a moment later, arching a brow as she gave Arden a once-over. “Oh, honey, you’re lit from within. I don’t know what you’ve been up to, but keep doing it.”
She didn’t have to say Gideon’s name. The glance she shot toward him said plenty.
Arden rolled her eyes but didn’t offer a denial. She reached for the bourbon, letting the silence speak for itself.
Because the truth was simple. She felt good. She wasn’t holding back. Not shrinking, not tucking pieces of herself away to make others comfortable. Not tonight. Tonight, she was all flame and steel. And the room? It bent to her heat.
A force behind the bar—mixing drinks with practiced hands, flashing sharp smiles that made tips rain like confetti, charging the room with tension that bordered on electric.
And Gideon? She felt him watching.
Not in the overt way some men did, nothing crude or obvious in it. He was too controlled for that. Too measured.
But she felt it in the air between them. In the pause of his breath when she stretched to reach the top shelf. In the way his gaze followed her when she leaned over the bar, enough to tease. Like a fuse waiting for flame.
And she let him look.
Because when he watched her, it wasn’t about possession. It was about recognition—seeing every part she refused to dim. And after today—Central Park, the Met, the kiss that lingered on her lips—that wasn’t passing heat.
This was something that stayed.
Something that claimed space.
This is real.
By the timethe last patrons trickled out, the room had quieted into a low and steady undertone, like the final crackle of embersafter a long burn.
Arden moved through the space with slow, practiced ease, wiping down the bar in steady strokes.
Closing time always felt like an exhale, hers to claim.
But tonight, she wasn’t alone.
She didn’t hear him approach. She felt him.
That shift in the air. The prickle beneath her skin.
Gideon.
He stood behind her, close enough that the heat of him raised goosebumps along her neck. Not touching. Not yet.
But present in a way that made her breath catch before she even turned to face him.
His expression was unreadable. But his eyes? They held something slower. Deeper.
A gravity that didn’t need to be named.
Her fingers stilled on the cloth in her hand. “What?” she asked, voice dry. “You sticking around to scare off the stragglers?”
He didn’t smile, at least not all the way. A subtle lift at the corner of his mouth. A pull that twisted low in her stomach. “You’re not a straggler.”
She cocked her head. “No?”
“No.” His gaze dropped for a moment, then lifted again, steady. Intentional.
The air thickened between them, charged and impossible. Words hovered there, unspoken and undeniable.
