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“Don’t,” she said, her voice barely above a breath.

Finn froze, his gaze locking on her face, trying to read the storm behind her eyes—was it hope, hesitation, or something even more dangerous? Her lips parted, cheeks flushed, eyes shining with emotion she hadn’t let fall. For one suspended heartbeat, everything in him stilled—muscles taut, breath held.

“Don’t make me fall in love with you again unless you’re planning to stay this time,” she whispered.

The air between them thickened, charged not just by the weight of her words, but by the raw gravity pulling them together—grief, longing, and something deeper still. Finn didn’t move. Couldn’t. One wrong word and she might shatter. Worse, she might walk away again.

“I’m not the one who left.” His voice was soft, stripped of anger, nothing but truth. “But I won’t let you leave me again.”

The silence that followed wasn’t empty—it vibrated, alive with everything they hadn’t said. Keira felt it in her bones. This was the edge. One more step, and there’d be no turning back.

But Keira wasn’t ready to leap. Not yet. She rose, heart still hammering in her chest, and backed toward the door, eyes locked with his. "I need to think, Finn. I need to breathe."

He didn’t stop her. Just watched her go, his body tense, his jaw clenched like he was biting down on a scream... or a roar.

She stepped into the hallway, the door closing softly behind her. Her legs carried her on instinct, but her mind was a storm. The truth was out now—but whether she could survive it, trust it, want it... that was another story entirely.

Keira paused at the landing, something tugging at her senses, raw and elusive. She moved to the nearest window, her fingers brushing the cold glass as she peered into the darkness beyond the garden. A chill ran across her skin, not from the breeze that crept through the old frame, but from a sensation deeper—primal, instinctive.

In the shadows just beyond the spill of golden light from the study, something unseen stirred.

CHAPTER 10

FINN

The door closed behind her with a soft click, leaving Finn staring at the empty space she'd just occupied. A muscle ticked in his jaw as his breath dragged in—tight, unsteady. His heart gave a low, reluctant thud, as if it too recognized the weight of what just passed between them. He exhaled slowly, pressing a palm against the doorframe for balance, fighting the urge to follow. Not yet. Not while the words between them still echoed like live wires in the air. For a long beat, he didn’t move.

Regret flared sharp in his chest, tempered by longing and a pulse of helpless anger. He hated this helplessness, this ache he couldn’t kill or claim. It wasn’t in his nature to wait, but for her—he would. For now. Her scent lingered in the air like smoke after a fire—warm, bittersweet, impossible to ignore. It clung to him, curling in his chest, a phantom ache he couldn’t shake.

Keira’s retreat echoed in his chest—spine straight, breath shaking—as she walked away. He let her go because she said she needed space, but a sharp edge of doubt gnawed at him. Did she really? Or was that just her armor talking?

Every muscle in him screamed to follow, to bridge the aching distance. But pressing her now—after what he'd revealed—could drive her away.

So he did the hardest thing he'd ever done. He let her go. For now.

He stood quietly, the echo of her presence still ghosting over his skin. The taste of the conversation, of her uncertainty and his restraint, still lingered like something half-swallowed. He knew one thing for certain, this wasn’t over.

Finn adjusted the waistband of his sweatpants and stepped out of his study, moving quietly up the stairs. At the top, he paused in the shadowed hallway outside the primary suite, the silence stretching between them like a taut thread—strung tight with need, caution, and everything they hadn’t said.

After a long moment, he exhaled and turned away, bare feet whispering over the polished floor. He walked down the corridor and slipped into the guest suite. The door closed behind him with a soft thud, sealing off the tension he’d left behind. He needed a shower—needed the heat and solitude to clear his head before he faced her again.

But it gnawed at him. Every minute dragged, stretched thin like wire drawn too tight. She’d left him at the altar, and all he’d been left with was fury and betrayal. He told himself he’d let her go—but the truth was, he never really had.

He remembered the blur of days after, the wreckage of that morning pounding through his skull like a war drum. The chapel’s stained-glass windows had bled morning light across empty pews, his vows ash on his tongue, tuxedo suffocating as the truth set in—she wasn’t coming.

Con had tried to pull him away from the altar, but his feet had stayed rooted, as if he could will her back with sheer force of need.

Grief had come first. Then the rage—white-hot, feral. He’d punched a wall, bloodied his knuckles. And then the search. Quiet, surgical. He’d told no one. Not even Con. For months, he scoured cities, trailed shadows—snippets of data, whispered sightings. London. Paris. A club in Barcelona that played deep and harbored ghosts. He caught her scent once in a Dublin train station and chased it until he lost it in a crowd.

Then, finally, a solid lead—an old hacker contact in Prague swore she’d seen Keira. He had a name, an address. A one-way flight booked. And then—he stopped. Pride wrapped cold fingers around his throat. She left, didn’t she? Walked away without a word. She hadn’t looked back—just vanished like smoke, leaving behind silence and the bitter scorch of abandonment that cut deeper than any blade, slicing through bone and pride alike. If she didn’t want to be found, maybe she didn’t deserve to be.

He’d told himself it was mercy. That letting her disappear was the kinder choice. That she didn’t want him.

And it had cost them years. Years when he could’ve held her. Fought beside her. Built something real.

Instead, he'd walked the streets of Prague, fists in his coat pockets, watching her old haunts from a distance he told himself was safety—but it was cowardice. Every time he got close, the question burned—what if she turned him away again? What if she hated him? What if the pain in her eyes was deeper than anything he could fix?

But he hadn’t stopped dreaming. Not once. Her voice haunted his sleep, soft curses and clever laughter echoing in the void. His need for her never dulled—it sharpened, honed itself into something jagged and brutal. Something he buried in work and war, in strategy and syndicate politics. But nothing drowned it out.