The shower cuts off.
Silence.
My heart crashes against my ribs, a sound as loud as the hush in the apartment. I hear the wet slap of her bare feet on the vinyl, the pause before she leaves the bathroom. I don’t fucking breathe. Not even as she opens the door and steps out.
Molly appears at the edge of the kitchen in a towel, hair damp and wild around her face. Her cheeks are flushed from the heat. Her eyes are sharper now — cleaner, less hunted, but still guarded.
She stops dead when she sees the plates.
“What are you doing?” she says, as if she’s caught me committing a crime.
I lean back against the counter and keep my voice casual, as if I didn’t just turn my apartment into a trap made of steak and butter and red wine.
I keep my tone easy, like I’m the man who plates steak for half-naked women all the time, like this isn’t the first time I’ve ever had anyone here at all. “Just making dinner. You looked like you could use it.”
She doesn’t move. She doesn’t even blink. Her gaze flicks to the steak, the broccoli, the wine, then back to my face, searching for an angle, the catch. She’s so fucking sharp, it hurts to look at her. I realize for the first time that I want her to trust me. Not because of the job. Not because I need the in. Because I want her to believe that I can be good — even if it’s just in this one, stupid, insignificant corner of the world.
“I didn’t ask for dinner.”
“I know.” I lift my hands slightly. “No strings. You can take it or leave it. You can just walk out. I won’t stop you.”
She weighs my words. The towel is knotted hard under her arm, one fist clenched tight on the end, the other hand flexing at her side like she’s expecting to have to throw the first punch. There’s a moment, just a sliver, where I expect her to break — curse me out and leave me standing here with two plates of foodand the kind of emptiness I won’t be able to fill. But her stomach betrays her with a small, quiet sound that makes her eyes flare with embarrassment.
I almost smile.
Almost.
I keep it locked down.
She starts to say something — a protest, maybe, or a warning. “I’m not…” But she chews it back, jaw clenching so tight a line appears along her cheek. She is not the woman who lets herself need anyone or anything.
I pour the second glass of wine and set it beside her plate, the stem angled toward her like an invitation.
“Sit,” I say gently. “Just for five minutes. Eat. Then you can go back to being tough.”
She narrows her eyes. “I am tough.”
I nod like that’s gospel. “I noticed.”
A beat passes, and then her shoulders drop, just a fraction. Like exhaustion and hunger outweigh pride. She walks to the table and sits. I slide the plate in front of her, set the roasted broccoli beside it, and step back like I’m giving a feral cat room to decide whether it’s going to bite.
Her eyes track the food again. The crust on the steak. The buttered garlic. The herbs. The way the broccoli is glossy, browned, fragrant.
Her throat bobs.
“You didn’t have to,” she says.
“I wanted to,” I say. “I like to eat, too, you know.”
It’s the most honest thing I’ve said all night.
She chews, slow and methodical, as if she’s rationing out the taste. Another bite. Another. Then she tries the broccoli, and the way her mouth curves around the fork makes me want things I have absolutely no right to want, but I lock it down. I’m not here to want. Still, heat slides low in my gut. It’s not lust exactly,but something worse. Something that wants to keep her here. To feed her again tomorrow. To make her laugh. To see her soften. To see what she looks like when she’s safe.
My phone buzzes again in my pocket, an angry reminder.
I don’t reach for it.
Not yet.
