FORTY
KEIRA
Ididn't sleep. Not for a single minute.
Just lay here in the dark beside Ewan, staring at the ceiling while my mind replays every second of that bathroom.
Storm-gray eyes where brown should have been.
Every time Henri looked at me with that impossible longing, it was Tristan. Every time he touched my hand or stood too close or said something that made my pulse stutter—Tristan. Every heated glance, every careful word, every moment I thought I was losing my grip on reality…
It was him.
All of it.
I wasn't projecting a dead love onto a stranger. I wasn't unraveling.
I was remembering.
Ewan shifts beside me, his arm heavy across my waist. I force myself not to flinch. His skin against mine feels like something my body is actively trying to reject.
I thought want had died inside me. Thought it had been beaten out, smothered to oblivion.
Last night proved me wrong.
Do you want me the way you used to?
Yes.
God, yes.
When he looked me in the eyes and asked that question, I nearly dissolved on the spot. The wanting hit me like a wave I'd forgotten existed, consuming and terrifying in its intensity.
I want him so badly it's making me reckless. Making me stupid. Making me think about things that could get us both killed.
Ewan's arm tightens and I go rigid, but then I realize he's just adjusting in his sleep.
The clock on the nightstand reads 5:17.
Forty-three minutes until the garden.
Forty-three minutes until I see him again.
I count every single one.
I slipthrough the east doors at 5:52, wrapped in a cashmere cardigan that does nothing against the cold. The sky is still colorless, the sun just starting to bleed pink along the horizon. The grounds are empty except for the birds.
And him.
Tristan is waiting by the hedgerow in his guard uniform, looking like he belongs there. Just another soldier doing his job.
But when his eyes find mine across the lawn, there's nothing calm about them.
I walk toward him on legs that don't feel entirely solid. He stays there, watching me approach with that careful stillness I'm beginning to understand—jaw tight, hands clasped behind his back like he's physically restraining himself.
The brown contacts are back in place.
I hate them.
