What have you done?
The question had been circling for hours, but I'd been too busy managing the crisis to let it land. Now, in the quiet of my truck with a billionaire's runaway son two feet away, there was nowhere left to dodge.
I'd hidden a missing person from his own family. Lied to my colleagues. Misdirected a search I was supposed to lead. If the Langfords found out—when they found out—my career would be over. Fifteen years of building a reputation, thrown away for a stranger with haunted eyes.
Not a stranger.
I pushed the thought away and opened my door. "Let's go."
The apartment looked worse in the middle of the night. The hallway light flickered again—I'd meant to report it for months—and the stairwell smelled faintly of mildew. I unlocked the door and flipped on the overhead light, already seeing the place through someone else's eyes.
"Spare" was a generous word for it.
A couch that had seen better decades, its cushions permanently indented from years of use. A coffee table I'd picked up from a thrift store for twenty bucks. A TV mounted on the wall because there wasn't room for a stand. The kitchen held a coffee maker, a toaster, and a precarious stack of takeout menus. A pile of laundry sat on the single chair, waiting to be folded.
No pictures. No decorations. No evidence that anyone actually lived here.
"It's not much." I heard the apology in my own voice and hated it.
Tobias stepped inside, his gaze traveling slowly across the room. The tuxedo shirt was wrinkled, sleeves still rolled up from when he'd stripped off the jacket hours ago. He looked rumpled and exhausted, nothing like the polished groom from the wedding photos.
He also looked more real than I'd ever seen him.
"It's perfect."
The words were quiet, sincere in a way that caught me off guard.
He was looking at the laundry pile with an expression that didn't make sense. Not judgment, not disgust. Something that looked almost like wonder.
"You can see everything," he said softly. "The whole apartment, right from the door. No hidden rooms. No staff lurking around corners. No one watching to see if you're doing it right."
I hadn't thought about it that way. I'd just chosen the cheapest place that met my basic requirements: clean enough, quiet enough, forgettable enough.
But looking at it now, through the eyes of someone who'd grown up in a mansion with servants in every corner, I understood.
This was freedom. Cramped and plain and imperfect freedom.
"Bedroom's through there." I nodded at the only interior door. "Bathroom's attached. You should probably take the bed."
"I can't take your bed."
"You just blew up your entire life. Take the damn bed."
His mouth curved. Not quite a smile, but the closest thing to one I'd seen from him all night. "Fine. But only because that couch looks like it might actually be a health code violation."
I glanced at the couch, which was, admittedly, held together mostly by hope and duct tape. "It has character."
"It has a spring sticking out of the armrest."
"That's the character."
This time, the curve of his lips almost resembled a smile. It transformed his face—softened the sharp edges, warmed his pale green eyes, made him look younger and more alive.
I looked away.
"I should have clean sheets in the closet," I said, moving toward the bedroom. "Let me just—"
"You don't have to." His voice stopped me. "I've already disrupted enough."
