“And are you?” I whispered. “Afraid of that.”
A long beat.
Then he said, quieter, “No.”
“You’re not afraid of Harper?” I asked.
“No.”
“And my mother?”
“No.”
“That’s arrogant.”
“It’s not,” he corrected. “It’s intention.”
That word again.
My pulse hitched.
“And what,” I asked softly, “is your intention in Charleston?”
His hand tightened slightly at my waist—anchoring, not restraining.
“To be where you are,” he said.
The simplicity of it struck deeper than it should have.
“That doesn’t tell me anything,” I whispered.
“It tells you the only part that matters right now,” he replied.
I stared at him, feeling something inside me tug in two directions at once.
The part that wanted answers.
And the part that wanted to stop fighting what was already true.
“My mother is coming tomorrow,” I said again, like it was a shield.
“Yes.”
“And Harper is going to interrogate you,” I added.
“Good,” he said, and there it was again—his steady acceptance of friction.
“You’re impossible,” I murmured.
His mouth curved faintly. “You’re still here.”
I should have been irritated.
Instead, heat threaded through me.
“Where are we sleeping?” I asked, voice quieter now.
His gaze dipped to my mouth, then back to my eyes. “Where you choose.”
