They always do.
It's instinct now—this pull toward her, this gravity that drags my gaze across any room until it lands on dark hair and green eyes and a body I've memorized from photographs but have barely touched.
Liberty stands at the edge of the crowd, near the rose garden, a glass of something she hasn't touched clutched in her hand.
She's wearing a white sundress that makes her tan skin glow in the fading light, and her dark hair is loose around her shoulders for once.
My mouth goes dry.
Eight years of photographs. Eight years of reports, surveillance footage, and secondhand accounts.
None of it prepared me for the reality of her being back home.
For the way my chest aches when I look at her, this hollow hunger that no amount of waiting has ever satisfied.
She looks beautiful. She looks furious.
I take a slow sip of whiskey and let myself drink her in instead.
She knows. I can see it in the rigid line of her spine, the way her eyes keep cutting toward the main house.
The tension vibrates through her body like a plucked string, and I want to put my hands on her and feel it hum beneath my palms.
She figured it out. Faster than I expected, but then, she always was clever.
That's part of why I want her.
I wonder how she did it.
The apartment, probably.
Diana was always the weak link—too soft, too prone to guilt. I should’ve paid her more. Or threatened her more.
It doesn't matter now.
Liberty knows, and she's still here.
Still standing on my property, surrounded by my people, trapped in the cage I spent years building.
She could run. Could make a scene, tell Gracie, try to turn the town against me.
She won't.
Because I have her parents. Because I have her options.
Because no matter which direction she turns, she'll find me already there, waiting, patient as stone.
Except I don't feel patient right now.
I feel like I'm going to crawl out of my skin if I don't touch her in the next five minutes.
I finish my whiskey and set the glass on the railing.
My hand is steady. My heart is not.
It’s time to remind her who she belongs to.
I take the stairs down to the lawn, nodding at people as I pass.
