“Expecting trouble?”
“Always.” His hand found the small of my back. “But not here. This place is completely off grid. The advance team swept everything this morning. We’re alone for the next forty-eight hours.”
Forty-eight hours. No phone calls. No threats. No Victor Corsetti lurking in the margins of every decision we made.
Just us.
The realization landed quietly, like something I’d been waiting for without knowing I was waiting.
Sebastian had arranged all of this — the property, the security, the escape from the city — not to control the situation but to give us space to exist outside of it. To find out what we were when nothing was actively trying to destroy us.
Inside, the house opened into a vast living area dominated by a stone fireplace and views of the lake. Someone had lit the fire before we arrived. The smell of woodsmoke mixed with something that might have been dinner in the kitchen, and I stood in the entrance taking it in — this space that was somehow both immaculate and warm, nothing like the penthouse.
A garment bag hung on a hook near the entryway. My name written on a card attached to it in Daniel’s precise hand.
“You had someone pack for me,” I said.
“I had someone buy for you.” Sebastian appeared beside me. “Daniel consulted Jenna.”
I opened the bag. Inside: a soft cashmere sweater in deep burgundy, comfortable trousers, a dress for evening, a silk sleep set, and at the bottom, folded carefully, one of Sebastian’s own shirts.
“The last one was my addition,” he said, not quite managing neutral.
I looked at him. He looked back. Something moved between us that didn’t need words.
“Your staff?” I managed.
“Left an hour ago. We’re alone.”
The words had hung between us charged with possibility, and we’d spent the first hour doing something I hadn’t expected: talking. Not about the investigation or the board or Victor Corsetti. Just talking — the kind of conversation that happened when two people finally had enough space around them to say the things they’d been saying in fragments.
Now I stood at the window while the afternoon light shifted over the lake, wearing the cashmere sweater and feeling, improbably, like I was somewhere I was supposed to be.
Sebastian moved through the space behind me, shedding his jacket, rolling his sleeves to the elbows, loosening his tie with the deliberate care of a man who’d learned to perform relaxation and was slowly, genuinely, starting to feel it.
“The national outlet called again,” I said. “They want me to anchor a segment on corporate corruption. Weekly feature, full editorial control.”
He was quiet for a moment. No immediate response. No strategic assessment offered without invitation. “And?”
“It would mean traveling. A lot.” I turned to watch his face — looking, as I always did, for the tell. The tightening. The calculation beginning. “New York mostly. Sometimes overseas.”
But Sebastian just nodded, his expression open. “When do they need an answer?”
“Next week.”
“And what do you want?”
The question caught me somewhere vulnerable. Not what was strategic, not what would be best for my career, not what would keep me safe within his reach. What I wanted.
“I don’t know yet.” The honesty felt like removing armor I’d been wearing so long I’d forgotten it was there. “Part of me wants to take it. Prove that everything we’ve been through hasn’t derailed what I’ve worked for. But part of me?—”
“Part of you?”
“Isn’t ready to figure out what we are from a thousand miles away.”
He crossed to me then, unhurried, stopping close enough that I had to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. Cedar and leather. That scent I’d cataloged somewhere around our second confrontation and never been able to forget since.
“Can I say something without it sounding like I’m trying to manage the outcome?”
