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He reached up as if to touch my face, then stopped, his hand hovering just millimeters from my skin.
"Then why are you still here?" I looked up at him, at those storm-gray eyes that had haunted my thoughts all day, and gave him the only honest answer I had.
"Same reason you're still here."
For a moment, I thought he might close that last distance between us. His fingers brushed against my cheek so lightly I might have imagined it, and I swayed toward him like a plant toward sunlight.
Then a door slammed somewhere in the house, breaking the spell.
Edward jerked back, running both hands through his hair. "This is madness."
"Yes," I agreed. "Complete madness."
"I should go to bed."
"You should."
"And you should go back inside your room."
"I should."
But neither of us moved. We stood there in that charged silence until Edward finally stepped back, his expression a mix of regret and determination.
"Goodnight, Lili."
"Goodnight, Edward."
I watched him walk away, noting how his shoulders carried the weight of what we hadn't done as much as we had. When I heard his door close, I finally shut mine and leaned against it, my heart hammering.
I stood there staring at the closed door long after his footsteps faded, my heart still racing from our almost-moment.
Outside my window, I could see lights still on in the main house—Edward's study, probably, where he'd spend the night wrestling with whatever was eating at him.
The phrase kept circling in my mind.Personal complications.
When he'd said it on that phone call earlier, I'd felt my stomach drop. The way he'd gone rigid when he saw me in the library afterward, the careful distance he'd been maintaining—it all pointed to one uncomfortable possibility.
Was I the personal complication?
I'd wanted to ask him directly in that charged moment in the hallway, but something in his expression had stopped me.
The way he'd looked tortured, like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Like he wanted to tell me something but couldn't.
Whatever was going on, whatever he wasn't telling me, he had reasons for keeping quiet.
The question was whether those reasons were about protecting himself, protecting me, or protecting something else entirely.
Because one thing had become crystal clear in that charged hallway encounter—whatever was happening between Edward Grosvenor and me was far bigger than either of us had bargained for.
And it might change everything.
CHAPTER 5
Edward
"Absolutely not." I set down my coffee with enough force to make the bone china rattle, but Daphne merely smiled—the kind of smile that meant she'd already won and was just waiting for me to realize it.
Daphne stormed through my study door like an army general who'd just spotted a tactical advantage, dropping into the chair across from my desk with a theatrical flourish.