The lounge should have been empty. The team had gone to bed an hour ago. Dex on a call with NorthFace’s European office, Jamie editing the next video, Olivia turned in after dinner. The main house should have been dark.
But there was Rose, curled into the corner of the leather couch by the fireplace, boots kicked off, feet tucked under her. She was watching something on her phone with earbuds in, and she hadn’t heard me come in through the side door.
I should have turned around. Every smart instinct I had told me to keep walking.
Instead I stopped in the kitchen doorway and watched her face.
Whatever she was watching had her completely. Her expression was unguarded in a way I’d never seen. Soft around the eyes, lips slightly parted, the permanent tension in her jaw gone. She looked like a different person when she wasn’t armored up.
She looked like someone I could get in serious trouble over.
She glanced up and saw me.
For one second, one unguarded, uncontrolled second, warmth flared across her face before she caught it and shut it down.
She pulled out one earbud. “I thought everyone was asleep.”
“Couldn’t sleep.” I nodded toward the kitchen. “Came for water.”
A lie. I’d come because the light was on and I was a moth.
“Pitcher’s in the fridge,” she said, and went back to her phone.
I got the water. Drank it slowly. Didn’t leave.
Sat down in the armchair across from her instead.
Rose’s eyes flicked up. “That’s a bold move.”
“I’m feeling reckless.”
“Clearly.” She pulled out the other earbud and locked her phone, screen down on the cushion beside her.
Not before I caught a flash of what she’d been watching.
My face. On her phone. One of the Iceland videos, from the look of it.
I said nothing. Kept my expression absolutely neutral. But my pulse kicked so hard I could feel it in my fingertips.
She’d been watching my videos.
Rose must have seen a shift in my face because her jaw tightened. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
The fire cracked. Wind pressed against the windows.
“Can I ask you something?” Rose said.
“You don’t need to ask first. Just ask.”
Her mouth twitched. “Fine. The video Jamie posted. The one in the pasture at dawn, with Brutus.”
“What about it?”
“You were talking to him, but it was overdubbed with music. What were you saying?”
