“Uncle Daniel!” she shouted, throwing her arms around him.
He laughed as he hugged her back, careful not to crush the flowers between them. Helena pulled away just slightly to look at the bouquet, her eyes growing wide.
“Are these roses for me or for Mommy?”
Daniel glanced at me, then back at her with a serious expression. “For you, of course.”
Helena beamed as if he had just handed her the moon.
After a few more words and a quick hug goodbye from Helena, I stepped into the hallway with Daniel, pulling my coat around me as the cold London air greeted us outside.The drive to the venue passed easily.
Daniel kept the conversation light—stories from the department, a few jokes about how chaotic academic weddings could become once the wine started flowing—and for a while I allowed myself to relax into the simple normalcy of it.
The moment we stepped inside the reception hall, something shifted. Warm light spilled from the chandeliers, colleagues gathered in small groups around the room, and the low sound of laughter and conversation filled the space. Daniel’s hand brushed the small of my back as we entered, guiding me through the doorway.
Then I felt it, the sudden awareness of being watched. The sensation came so sharply that my steps slowed before I could stop them. A familiar tension moved along the back of my neck, and my gaze lifted across the room until it found him.
Hayden stood near the bar with a glass of champagne in his hand, already watching me. His eyes moved over the red dress, the line of my shoulders, my collarbone, the waves of my hair, before returning to my face with an expression that made my chest tighten.
Five years had changed many things, yet the first thought that struck me was how handsome he still was. The black suit fit him well, the white shirt sharp beneath it, and the thin black framesof his glasses sat on the bridge of his nose with an ease that made him look even more dangerous than I remembered. His hair was a little longer now, softening the hard lines of his face, though nothing about the way he stood felt soft.
For a moment, the room seemed to fade around me. The look in his eyes held nothing polite or neutralIt was intense and possessive, his focus making it clear that he had noticed every detail the moment I walked through the door.
Then his attention shifted from me to Daniel, standing beside me. Something dark crossed his face, and despite the distance between us, the air felt heavier.
I forced my breathing to stay even, because seeing Hayden Stone in that room was the one thing I had not prepared myself for. I had been certain he would not be there, certain that at least one evening could exist without him entering it and turning everything inside me unsettled again.
For a moment, I stood still while the reception continued around us. Laughter moved through the room, glasses clinked, conversations drifted between tables, yet all of it felt far Daniel’s voice pulled me back.
“Are you alright?”
I blinked and forced my attention away from Hayden. “Yes,” I said, though my voice came out softer than I wanted.
“You stopped walking.”
I offered him a small smile and glanced around the room. “Just taking it all in.”
Daniel followed my gaze across the hall. “Quite the turnout. Half the university seems to be here.”
“Yes,” I murmured. Half the university, and somehow the one man I had spent years trying to avoid.
I reached for a glass of champagne from a nearby tray, grateful to have something in my hand. The cold stem settled against my fingers and helped pull me back into the moment.Do notlook again.That was the rule I gave myself. Tonight, Hayden’s presence could not matter the way it used to, because I had come here with Daniel, as a colleague, as his partner for the evening, and nothing beyond that.
Still, my eyes betrayed me.
They moved across the room before I could stop them, and there he was, exactly where he had been before, still watching. His expression had changed now, calm settling over his face in a way that felt practiced, although the intensity in his gaze had only sharpened.
For a second, our eyes met again, and the familiar pull moved through me at once. Years had passed. There had been distance, silence, and enough pain to build an entire life between who I had been and who I was now, yet under the warm lights of that reception hall, I could still feel the same force that had once made walking away from him feel impossible.
Daniel’s hand brushed my arm gently. “Come on,” he said with an easy smile. “Let’s say hello to Lena and Marcus before the entire department steals them.”
“Yes, of course.”
We moved further into the reception hall together, weaving through small groups of colleagues who greeted us with friendly smiles and congratulations for the newly married couple.
I focused on the conversations around me, on Daniel beside me, on anything that kept my attention away from the far side of the room. Even as I laughed at something one of the professors said, awareness lingered at the edge of my thoughts, because I did not need to look again to know Hayden Stone was still watching me. Somehow, I had the feeling the evening had only just begun.
After a few minutes of greetings and congratulations, Daniel and I reached Lena and Marcus. Lena looked beautiful in her ivory dress, while Marcus stood beside her with the relievedexpression of a man who had survived the ceremony and was ready to enjoy the rest of the night.
