"It's unusual." He leaned against the doorframe, blocking my exit. "You never leave on time. You stay late, pick up extra shifts, hover until you're the last one out."
"Maybe I have places to be."
"You don't have places. You have this hotel and a sad apartment with a broken couch."
"The couch isn't broken. It has character."
"The couch is a health hazard." He studied me with those sharp eyes that never missed anything, the same eyes that made him such a good night manager, able to spot trouble before it started. "What's going on with you?"
"Nothing."
"You're lying."
"I'm not lying. I'm declining to elaborate."
He didn't push. That was the thing about Ronan. He knew when to back off. We'd worked together long enough that he understood my boundaries, even if he didn't respect them.
But I could feel his gaze following me as I gathered my things and headed out.
The hotel was still buzzing about the runaway groom. The Langford wedding had become legendary in staff gossip circles. Rumors ranged from plausible (cold feet, secret affair) to absurd (witness protection, alien abduction, elaborate insurance fraud). Nobody connected me to any of it.
Yet.
Every mention of Tobias's name made my shoulders tense. Every whispered speculation felt like a threat. I kept waiting for someone to notice that I'd been acting differently since that day, that I'd been leaving early, that my sad apartment might not be quite so sad anymore.
So far, nobody had. But it was only a matter of time.
I came home that evening to find candles on the table.
Not just any candles. My emergency candles. The ones I kept in a kitchen drawer for power outages, still in their original packaging from three years ago when I'd moved in. I'd bought them during a hurricane warning that never materialized and promptly forgotten they existed.
They were lit now. Three of them, arranged in a cluster on the table that Tobias had set with his usual precision. The plates were out. Wine glasses sat beside them. Where had he found wine glasses?
"Where did you get the candles?"
Tobias looked up from the stove, wooden spoon in hand. He was wearing an apron now, something else that had appeared in my apartment through mysterious means. "You had them. In a drawer."
"Those are emergency candles."
"It's a dinner emergency." He stirred something that smelled amazing. "The lighting in here is terrible. I've been meaning to mention it."
"You mentioned it when you bought the plant."
"The plant helps, but it's not enough. These bulbs are too harsh." He gestured at the overhead light with the spoon. "They make everything look clinical. Candles soften the atmosphere."
"You can't use emergency candles for ambiance."
"They're candles, Vance. They don't know the difference."
I stood in the doorway, caught between amusement and something else. Something that felt too much like want.
"The lighting's fine."
"The lighting is adequate. That's different from fine." He set the spoon down and turned to face me fully. "Dinner's almost ready. Go change."
"I don't need to change for dinner."
"You smell like the hotel."
