I swallowed hard. “You don’t get to tell me what to feel.”
His mouth tilted in a pained half-smile. “No. But I can ask.”
Something in me eased.
“Okay,” I whispered.
His shoulders dropped with relief. The tiniest relaxation. No one else would have noticed it. No one else would get close enough to try.
We started walking—slowly, side by side. The sky was turning lavender, the first stars peeking through the dusk. Alex kept close, not touching me but radiating protective heat like a shield.
After a few blocks, he cleared his throat.
“There’s a place,” he said. “Not far from here. If you want…I’d like to take you.”
“Take me where?”
“A club,” he said. “Not loud. Not crowded. Just—somewhere I can make tonight up to you. Somewhere I can show you that I meant what I said. That I’m trying.”
He didn’t look at me when he said it.
I stared at him for a long second. The street lamps threw gold across his cheekbones, making him look almost unreal. Dangerous. Beautiful.
And heartbreakingly earnest.
“Okay,” I said softly. “Take me.”
We found our way to a dingy door that led us inside a dark jazz bar. The club was tucked down a side street, a jewel-box of stained glass and velvet curtains, music drifting through the doorway like warm honey, mixing with a soft clanking of chords, low voices, and clinking glasses.
It felt intimate. Safe. Hidden. Somehow, the clandestine nature of it also reminded me a little too much of that door I’d walked through on the night of the auction.
The threshold I’d passed that changed the course of my entire life.
Alex held the door for me, his fingers brushing the small of my back as I stepped inside. The touch sent a shiver through me.
Inside, lanterns glowed amber, casting shadows like melted gold. A trio played on a small stage—a cello, a piano, a voice like smoke.
“This is beautiful,” I whispered.
Alex watched me instead of the décor. “Yeah,” he murmured. “It is.”
We found a booth in the corner, plush velvet that pulled us close together without even trying. My thigh brushed his. He didn’t move away.
Neither did I.
For a moment, I just listened to the music, letting it wrap around me, letting the fear and hurt drain out slowly.
Then Alex leaned in, close enough that his breath warmed my cheek.
“I meant what I said,” he murmured. “I want to do better with you. For you. I want to understand what it means to?—”
He faltered.
“To care about someone,” he finished quietly.
My heart squeezed.
“Alex,” I whispered, “you already do.”
