“Actually,” she said, and her voice had changed, all the edges filed smooth, polished to a shine, “I just realized I have somewhere to be. Tell Finneas I stopped by.”
She turned and walked to the elevator. Didn’t look back, didn’t throw a parting comment, didn’t say a word about my outfit or my desk or anything. Just pressed the button and waited. Her reflection in the elevator doors was perfectly still, perfectly composed.
My stomach dropped.
Lorraine didn’t leave without a last word, didn’t leave fast, sure as hell didn’t leave when she’d been told Finneas would be back in minutes. In two years of dealing with this woman I had never once seen her walk away from a chance to wait for him.
The doors opened, she stepped in, gone.
I sat at my desk staring at the closed elevator doors with a cold feeling crawling up my spine. I didn’t know what just happened, what she’d seen or sensed, what had changed between her walking off that elevator and walking back onto it sixty seconds later. But her face at the end, flat and empty, that I understood. That was a woman who’d gotten the answer to a question she’d been asking for weeks.
My hands were shaking. Not from the sex, not from the adrenaline of almost getting caught, but from the look in her eyes when she turned away. I’d seen her angry, petty, dismissive, cold, cruel. Never quiet like that. Her anger was loud, performative, designed to be witnessed. Whatever that was, it was different.
When he came back I told him she’d stopped by and he’d just missed her. Kept my voice casual, watched his face for a reaction. His jaw tightened, briefly, a flicker of tension before he nodded and went back to his office. I sat at my desk staring at my screen, replaying the whole thing, her nostrils flaring, her eyes going flat, the way she left without a word. I kept coming back to the same question: what the hell did she see?
Over the next week she didn’t come back. No calls, no texts, no unannounced visits to critique my wardrobe. Monday passed, then Tuesday, then the whole week. The floor stayed quiet, my email stayed free of passive-aggressive CCs. I waited for the other shoe to drop every morning when the elevator dinged, braced for the click of her heels, and it never came.
It should have felt like relief but it felt like the pause before a storm, the quiet that makes you check the sky.
I told myself to let it go. Told myself she was dramatic and unpredictable, maybe she’d gotten bored of tormenting me, found a new hobby, was on vacation somewhere being horrible to resort staff instead of to me. I didn’t believe any of that but I repeated it enough times that the knot in my stomach loosened to a manageable level.
Because I was happy. So goddamn happy it scared me, and I wasn’t going to let her silence take that from me. Not when Ihad the library, the reading, mornings in his kitchen, the way he looked at me when he thought I was asleep. Not when I had this.
That night at the estate, in his bed, my head on his chest, his fingers tracing slow lines down my back. The room was dark and warm, his heartbeat under my ear, and I lay there for a while just listening to it, letting the rhythm settle me. His chest rose and fell, slow and even. The warmth of his skin under my cheek was the most grounding thing I’d felt all week.
“Can I tell you something embarrassing?” I said.
“More embarrassing than the shirtless dream?”
“We agreed to never bring that up again.”
“I agreed to nothing.”
I pinched his side. He caught my hand and held it against his chest.
“What is it?” he asked.
I traced a circle on his skin with my free finger, stalling. I didn’t know why this felt harder to say than anything else I’d told him. Maybe because it was honest in a way that didn’t have any sarcasm to hide behind.
“I keep thinking about the porch nights,” I said. “All of it, you just sitting there while I talked and talked and talked. About work, about you, about my parents, about the stupid highland romance. I told you everything, Finneas. Every insecure thought, every shitty day, every embarrassing crush confession.” I took a brief pause. “I keep waiting to be angrier about it. LikeI should still be pissed that you lied. But honestly? I’m just grateful. You were there every time I needed someone and I didn’t even know it.”
His hand tightened on mine, fingers resuming the slow lines on my back.
“Those nights were the only thing keeping me sane,” he said, quiet. “Two years of council meetings, pack politics, running a company, pretending I didn’t want to cross the floor and pull you out of your chair every time you smiled. The porch was the only place I could breathe.”
“Even when I was doing the accent?”
“Especially when you were doing the accent.”
“Liar. My accent is terrible and you know it.”
“Your accent is terrible. I loved it anyway.”
My chest ached. I adjusted my head and looked at him. His eyes were dark in the low light, face open, unguarded. I thought about the dog on the porch, the man in the office, how they were the same person. How I’d somehow ended up here, in a wolf king’s bed, with his heartbeat under my hand, feeling more at home than I’d felt since Whitebrook. The thought should have scared me. It didn’t. It just felt true.
“I’m still embarrassed about the grunt ranking though,” I said.
“That was my favorite night.”
