Magnus’s mouth curved faintly. “Relaxation shouldn’t make you more vulnerable.”
“No,” she agreed. “It just makes vulnerability harder to hide.”
He held that between them for a beat longer than necessary, aware of the current tightening beneath the surface. Then he inclined his head toward the table, breaking the moment before it shifted into something neither of them had planned foryet.
“Dinner,” he said, his tone steady again, though nothing between them feltsteady anymore.
Her gaze moved over the candles, the two place settings, the wine already poured. “This looks intentional.”
“It is.” Magnus didn’t lighten the admission. He watched the realization move across her face and understood exactly what she was thinking. Two place settings. Wine breathing in the glasses. Candles already lit before she’d even stepped through the door. None of it had happened by accident. Nothing in his house everdid.
“That’s unsettling.” Her voice stayed even, but he saw the shift in her posture. The small tightening through her shoulders. She was trying to decide whether this dinner had been prepared for her comfort… or her seduction.
“It shouldn’t unsettle you.” His gaze lingered on her a moment longer than necessary, letting his attention connect them. Because the truth was that the room had changed the instant she walked into it. The candles weren’t dangerous before. The distance across the table wasn’t charged. Now every inch of space between them carried a kind of subtle awareness that hadn’t existed a momentago.
Magnus rested one hand lightly on the back of the chair opposite hers but didn’t sit yet. He found himself studying the way the candlelight moved across her throat, the delicate hollow at the base of it. She looked calmer than she had that morning. Softer. But the softness only made the tension underneath it easier tosee.
“You’re wondering if this is atrap,” hesaid.
Her eyes lifted to his immediately.“Is it?”She walked toward the table hesitantly, as if deciding whether the scene was a snare or an invitation. When she reached the chair, she paused before sitting.“Are you studying me?” she asked.
“Yes.”
He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t look away. The truth was he’d been studying her from the moment she stepped out of the car, cataloging every shift in her expression, every subtle change the day had carved into her. He wanted to know where she was unguarded. Where she was brave. Where she might break. And he wanted to know how close he could stand before her breathing changed.
Her lips curved faintly, but there was heat beneath it now, an awareness that she understood exactly what his attention meant. She dropped into the seat, as if accepting the fact that she was choosing to remain under that scrutiny rather than escapeit.
Magnus took the chair across from her and lifted the cover from her plate. Steam rose in a lazy curl. He watched her reaction rather than the food.“How was the spa?” he asked.
“You sent me there.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
She picked up her glass, turning the stem between her fingers. “It was… indulgent.”
“And?”
“And dangerous.”
His eyes sharpened. “Explain.”
She took a sip before answering. “Relaxation makes people careless. They kept asking if I wanted more. More heat. More attention. More everything.” She hesitated. “Like they expected me to admit I deserved it.”
Magnus leaned back slightly, studying her across the candlelight. “Do you?”
The question settled betweenthem.
Her gaze dropped to the candle flame between them. The small light trembled in the glass, reflected in her eyes as she watched it. “I don’t know what I deserve.”
The admission was quiet. Too quiet. It carried none of the defiance he’d come to expect from her and none of the careful diplomacy she usually used when she didn’t want to answer directly.
He didn’t like that answer.Not because it was weak.But because it sounded like something she’d been taught.
Magnus watched the way her fingers curled against the edge of the table as if she were grounding herself. The spa had relaxed her edges, but it hadn’t erased the reactions underneath. She was still alert. Still measuring him. Still trying to understand the rules of a world she’d been dropped into without warning.
And yet she’d just admitted something real.That mattered more than she probably realized.
“You deserve safety,” hesaid.
