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“So,” I say, drumming my fingers against the steering wheel, “we should probably discuss our relationship backstory.”

Theo slumps in his seat and groans. “I knew this was coming. Mentally prepared and everything. I still hate it.”

I roll my eyes. “If we’re going to convincingly sell this whole ‘we’re madly in love’ act, we need to be on the same page.”

He shifts in his seat. “What’s our story, then?”

I hum, considering. “How about a torrid, forbidden love affair between a student and professor?”

A little too close to home, I realize, but that’s exactly why I said it.

His reaction is immediate. He visibly recoils. “Absolutely not.”

I snicker. “Relax, I’m kidding.”

Kind of. Not really.

Because we did have that night.

Back when I was still a student and he was just visiting Bellwood, not on payroll yet.

One reckless, all-eyes-and-almosts kind of night at a university-sponsored gallery opening. Some cross-department event in a museum that smelled like polished wood and too much wine. We ended up outside, sitting too close on a wooden bench, both of us needing the air away from the too-crowded space.

Funny how the closeness to one another hadn’t felt too crowded at all.

There’d been a pull between us from the beginning. Subtle, insistent, impossible to ignore. He’d glanced at me once across the room, and it was like something in me tilted toward him and never quite settled back.

We’d started talking about blood spatter patterns, of all things, and I absentmindedly mapped one out on a cocktail napkin with a pen lifted from the sign-in table. Somewhere between impact angles and swapping terrible conference stories, we veered into childhood trauma and our shared hatred of networking events.

I’d mentioned a case I couldn’t shake (thankfully not his), and he’d known the exact one. We kept finding common ground. Same books. Same dark humor. Same need to understand why people break.

He’d kissed me. It was careful. Unsure.

We pulled apart before it could become anything more, before we could cross a line.

But if things had gone just a little differently, I think we would have ruined each other.

Then he got the job. Everything in between happened. I graduated. And we shoved the whole thing into a box labeled Never Happened, Definitely Shouldn’t Talk About It.

The box where he probably wants to shove a lot of things when it comes to me.

His stares out the window like maybe he’s remembering it too—remembering me.

“Fine, fine,” I say, breezing past it before I start picturing things I shouldn’t. “We met at a conference. I impressed you with my razor-sharp wit and undeniable charm. You were instantly smitten.”

Theo snorts. “Smitten.”

I nod solemnly. “Head over heels.”

“Sounds highly inaccurate.”

I shrug. “Too late, it’s canon now.”

He sighs, shaking his head. “You’re unbearable.”

“You love it.”

He doesn’t answer, but I catch the corner of his mouth twitching, just slightly. “If we’re doing this, we need to make it believable—but within reason,” he responds, his tone clipped. “Minimal effort, minimal touching, and for the love of God, no unnecessary dramatics.”