Graham did not contradict her. He reached out and, with careful pressure, steadied the corner of the page beneath her hand.
The touch was brief.
But it was not nothing.
Eleanor’s breath caught.
She remembered his mouth pressed to hers—too fierce, too honest—and the way he had stepped back as if desire were a weakness.
Then she remembered the worse truth beneath it. He had stepped back because he was afraid of what wanting her would cost.
“So,” she said, forcing her voice steady, “what do we do?”
Graham’s gaze held hers. “Tomorrow we go to the rendezvous spot. Before six. We find whoever is tied to C1 and we keep them alive.”
“No guards,” Eleanor said.
Graham’s mouth tightened. “I will place men where they cannot be seen.”
Eleanor did not argue the point. She was not foolish. But she would not accept being handled like a parcel. “We set terms,” she said.
Graham’s brows lifted a fraction.
“You do not lie to me,” Eleanor said. “Not with omissions dressed as protection. If you need my mind, you treat me as your partner.”
He meet her gaze. Held it. Then nodded once. “And you tell me when you are in need of help.”
“I will tell you when I am in danger,” Eleanor corrected. “Out of my depth is not always the same thing.”
His gaze sharpened then, unexpectedly, softened. “I misjudged you,” he said.
Eleanor’s throat tightened. She looked down, then back up. “So have I.”
For a heartbeat neither of them moved.
The candle guttered, flaring bright, and in its brief blaze Eleanor saw the strain in his restraint, the brutal gentleness he forced into every touch, the way his attention returned to her as if her existence had become a point of gravity.
She stepped closer. Close enough to feel the heat of him, the damp wool of his coat, the restrained tremor beneath all that control.
She rose onto her toes and kissed him.
Once.
Firm and deliberate.
Graham made a low sound in his throat and lifted a hand to her jaw as if to anchor himself to something real. His thumb brushed her cheekbone—careful, almost reverent—and then he forced himself to let go.
When they parted, Eleanor’s pulse was unsteady, but her eyes were clear. “That was no mistake,” she said softly.
Graham’s mouth tightened. “No.”
“We will not pretend it did not happen,” Eleanor added.
His gaze held hers, fierce and honest. “No, we will not.”
Eleanor stepped back and returned to the desk, taking up her pencil as if it were the most natural thing in the world to kiss a man and then plan the saving of lives.
Graham moved to the window, scanning the street as though he could see betrayal in the fog.
