He hummed, low in his throat, the sound slipping beneath my skin. “Haunting is a strong word,” he said. “But if I did, I’d say you make a worthwhile ghost.”
My fingers tightened around the cup, the porcelain rough against my palms. “Is that your professional opinion?”
“Strictly academic,” he murmured. “For now.”
Thatfor nowlanded heavier than it should have, a quiet promise wrapped in restraint. I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. The silence stretched between us, fine and brittle, the kind that felt dangerous to touch.
He didn’t move away immediately. Instead, his gaze dropped to the cooling cup beside my hand. Without asking, he reached for it, his fingers brushing mine for the briefest second, just enough to remind me that he could take whatever he wanted and make it seem inevitable. He lifted the cup, turned it slightly until his eyes found the faint trace of lipstick along the rim, and brought it to his lips. He lifted the cup and drank, one slow pull that felt too purposeful to be casual, his gaze never leaving mine. The sight rooted me in place, breath caught somewhere between disbelief and the quiet, unbearable heat that unfurled low in my stomach. I couldn’t look away. He set the cup down, the faintest curl at the corner of his mouth betraying something close to a smirk. “Hmm,” he murmured, voice roughened by something unspoken, threaded with quiet challenge. “Sweet. Delicious.” His thumb dragged slowly over his lower lip, eyes locked on mine. “Not usually my taste…but I liked it.”
The words slipped through the air, cutting deeper than they should have. I felt the tremor in my pulse, the faint tremble of my fingers as I reached for the cup he’d just touched. It was ridiculous, I knew that, letting something so small pull me apart from the inside, but the warmth where his lips had been still clung to the porcelain, and I couldn’t bring myself to let go.
He straightened, reached for his own coffee from the counter, and let his eyes linger on mine one last time. “Try not to ruin any more coats, Miss Carter,” he said with mockery. “Some of us have a weakness for old habits.”
And before I could decide whether to reply or to breathe, he turned and walked away, the door swinging shut behind him in a rush of winter air. His reflection caught briefly in the window, a dark outline framed by frost, then disappeared into the gray.
For a moment, I didn’t move. The café’s hum returned in fragments, clinking cups, scattered laughter, the hiss of the espresso machine, but none of it reached me. My fingers still rested on the rim of that cup, my pulse still unsteady, my chest tight with something I didn’t have the courage to name. Whatever this was —this pull, this quiet ruin— it wasn’t supposed to happen. But as the door closed on the echo of his voice, I knew it already had.
The cold struck first, not the kind that brushed your cheeks and moved on, but a heavier thing, sharp-edged and insistent, slipping through the seams of my coat and burrowing between my ribs, settling there with the persistence of something meant to be remembered. The hour was still early, barely past eight, and the city carried that muted hush winter sometimes wore, a stillness so complete it felt as if the streets themselves were waiting for a signal to begin again. My boots echoed across the slick pavement as I crossed the quad, each step a hollow rhythm against the concrete. Above me, the sky hung pale and unmoving, its light diffused into a spectral gray that made the edges of the buildings blur and the air feel almost suspended. I kept my hands buried in my pockets, scarf drawn high, tryingto convince myself that the restlessness turning inside me was about the symposium and not about him, the man I hadn’t seen since yesterday.
Not that I’d been counting the hours. I had. Every one of them.
The venue rose ahead, the old library turned into a cathedral of glass and stone, too elegant to be called modern, too cold to feel alive. It had the kind of architecture that made you lower your voice without realizing why, the kind that made your thoughts sound louder in the silence. I pushed through the side doors, the blast of heat too sudden, or maybe it was just the air catching on the edge of anticipation.
My gloves came off slowly, scarf unwound, vision adjusting to the brightness filtering through the high windows, and then the air shifted. It wasn’t a sound. It wasn’t even movement. It was an awareness, the quiet instinct that told me someone else had entered the room. Someone my body already recognized before my mind caught up.
When I turned, I saw him.
Hayden moved through the doorway as if the cold outside had never touched him, composed in that way only he could manage, a dark wool coat falling perfectly over broad shoulders, the black turtleneck beneath framing the sharp line of his jaw and the tension that lived there. And then, there were the glasses, thin frames, catching the faint light, an addition so small it shouldn’t have mattered, yet somehow it did. It made him look more dangerous, more self-contained, more aware of exactly what effect he had.
He didn’t look at me at first. He didn’t have to. His presence had already changed the air, drawn it tighter, denser, until even the smallest sound felt weighted.
When his gaze finally met mine, it wasn’t sudden. It was a descent, quiet and inevitable, the kind that makes your pulse stumble because it doesn’t know whether to run or stay.
“Miss Carter,” he said, his voice level, unreadable, carrying that restrained depth that always seemed to find its way past every line I built around myself.
“Professor,” I answered, my tone softer than I intended, the syllables slipping out before I could strengthen them. I should’ve said it again, steadier this time. I didn’t.
He closed the distance slowly, until he stood close enough for me to catch the faint trace of his cologne, clean, sharp, threaded with something darker beneath, something that didn’t belong to surface civility. It clung faintly to the air between us, a scent that felt earned rather than applied.
“Did you finish revising the keynote notes?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, raising my chin a fraction. “The committee reviewed and approved it yesterday. Everything’s in the folder.”
He inclined his head slightly, the gesture small but exact. “And the presentation space?”
“I walked through it yesterday. Twice.”
His mouth curved, not a smile, not even approval, just the faintest trace of acknowledgment. “Good.”
But the space between us felt anything but good. It vibrated, slow and low, with all the things we couldn’t voice. Every word carried weight, every pause drew too much breath, and beneath it all was the quiet thrum of something neither of us had the courage to name.
He looked toward the far hall, eyes narrowing slightly. “Let’s start. We’ll review the floor plan and ensure the timings are correct.”
“Of course,” I replied, my tone steadier this time, though the control tasted rehearsed. “You have my full attention.”
That made him look back at me, fully. For a suspended moment, he didn’t speak. He simply watched, and the silence that stretched between us wasn’t soft. It wasn’t even cruel.It carried an ache that demanded to be felt, a precision that pressed against the ribs and refused to ease.
I followed him into the main hall, the rhythm of my heels finding its pattern behind his longer strides. Each sound, each measured echo, seemed to pull me further into his orbit. I told myself to focus, to breathe, to hold onto the version of myself that was calm and composed, but that illusion had already begun to slip. I hadn’t been myself since the first time he said my name, and I suspected I wouldn’t be again.
