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T he moment Eleanor turned away, Graham knew he couldn’t let her go.

Not again.

Not after five years of regret, five years of silence, five years of trying—and failing—to forget the girl he left behind.

So, he did the only thing he could. He reached for her hand.

She stilled but didn’t pull away. A small victory.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice as sharp as ever, yet edged with something he wasn’t sure she wanted him to hear.

“I want to dance with you.”

“In the middle of the terrace?”

A ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “No.” He let his fingers linger against hers for a moment before he released her. He took their drinks and placed them on a marbled round table. “Come with me.”

She hesitated—of course she did. Eleanor had always been stubborn, always guarded. And he had given her every reason to be wary of him.

But then, to his relief, she followed.

The night air wrapped around them as they stepped onto the garden path, the sound of music fading behind them. The lake stretched ahead, still and silent, a mirror of the sky, framed by willows that swayed gently in the summer breeze.

Here, there were no watchful eyes. No walls between them.

Just her and him, as it should have been.

Graham turned, watching her carefully. She had changed since he last saw her—her features sharper, her presence more self-assured. But there was still something familiar, something that made his chest ache.

Without thinking, he reached for her hand again.

She inhaled sharply as his fingers closed around hers. A flicker of something passed between them—something fragile, something real.

“There is no orchestra here,” she murmured, as if giving herself a reason to walk away.

“We don’t need one.”

He pulled her up against his body. And God help him, she let him.

His hand found the curve of her waist, fitting there more perfectly than he had any right to expect. Her other hand settled lightly in his, the touch barely there, as if she still wasn’t sure whether she should trust him.

He didn’t blame her.

They moved in slow, deliberate steps, their bodies falling into a rhythm neither had practiced but both somehow knew. The night stretched around them, silent but for the soft splashing of water against the rocks and the distant strains of music drifting from the ballroom.

For the first time in five years, Graham let himself look at her—truly look at her.

And it nearly undid him.

She was just as he remembered. And nothing like he remembered.

“I never meant to leave you,” he said suddenly, the words slipping out before he could stop them.

Her hand in his stiffened. He felt the tension coil in her spine, saw the flash of pain she tried to hide behind the delicate mask.

“You left without a word.”

“I know.”

“You never wrote.”

“I couldn’t.”

She pulled back slightly, searching his face. “You mean you chose not to.”

His jaw tightened. No! That wasn’t it at all.

But how did he explain the years of silence? The things he had done, the reasons he had buried? How did he make her understand that leaving had been the hardest thing he had ever done?

He stopped dancing.

Before she could step away completely, he lifted her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to the fabric of her glove.

It was reckless.

It was foolish.

And he didn’t care.

“You were the only thing that mattered,” he murmured against her fingers.

She sucked in a breath, her mask barely concealing the way her expression faltered.

Graham steeled himself for the confession he should have made years ago. “I had no choice, Eleanor.” He forced himself to look at her, to make her see that he meant every word. “There was a debt—a scandal. If I had stayed, it would have ruined my family. I had to leave. I had to fix it.”

Her throat moved as she swallowed, but she didn’t speak.

“I wanted to come back,” he went on, desperate for her to understand. “I wanted to the moment I knew it was safe. But I told myself you deserved better. That you had surely moved on.”

The words felt heavy in his chest, but he said them anyway.

“And yet, when I saw you tonight, I knew I had never stopped wanting you.”

Silence.

The breeze stirred the hem of her gown, sending ripples through the moonlit lake behind her. He could see the war inside her—the doubt, the hurt, the lingering feeling neither of them had been able to shake.

Would she walk away? Or tell him it was too late?

But as seconds blended into minutes, she didn’t.

Graham waited.

Waited for Eleanor to say something, to pull away, to push him back into the past where she had every right to leave him.

But she didn’t.

She stared at him, her breaths uneven, her gloved fingers trembling ever so slightly in his grasp. The lake was silent around them, the night stretched thin, the weight of five years of absence pressing between them.

And then—

She lifted her hand.

Slowly. Deliberately.

Her fingers touched his mask, brushing against the edges of the black filigree as if she wanted to remove it, as if she needed to see him, truly see him, beneath the illusion of the night.

But she didn’t take it off.

She just let her fingertips linger at his jaw, as if memorizing him all over again.

Graham felt something crack inside his chest.

If she kissed him now—if she leaned in just an inch more—he would be lost.

He didn’t move. He didn’t dare. He only let her look at him, let her see what he could not say.

Her lips parted slightly as if she wanted to speak, but no words came.

Instead, she tilted her face up toward his, just the barest movement, but enough that he felt her breath against his skin.

Just enough that if he had been less of a man, he would have closed the distance between them and stolen the kiss they both wanted.

His hands curled into fists at his sides.

“Nora,” he breathed, a warning, a plea—he wasn’t sure which.

She hesitated.

And then—just like that—the spell broke.

She shook her head as if shaking off some dangerous illusion. Her fingers dropped away from his face, her posture stiffening as she stepped back.

“I—I can’t.” Her voice was barely a whisper, but it cut through him all the same.

Graham swallowed, forcing himself to let her go. “I understand.”

Her gaze flickered as if she doubted that, as if she doubted herself.

“No, you don’t,” she whispered. “Because if I kiss you now, Graham… I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop.”

His pulse thundered, his fingers twitching with the urge to pull her back, to erase the space she had placed between them.

But he didn’t.

Because this—this hesitation, this fear in her eyes—meant something. It meant she cared. It meant she felt everything he did, but she wasn’t ready to surrender to it yet.

And for the first time in his life, Graham Sinclair was willing to be patient.

He gave her a slow nod, forcing a wry, self-deprecating smile. “Then I suppose I shall have to wait until you are ready.”

Eleanor’s lips parted as if to say something, but instead, she took another step back. Then another.

And then she turned, walking away from him and disappearing into the night.

Graham exhaled slowly, staring at the rippling lake. Five years ago, he had left her. Now, it was Eleanor who was leaving him.

But this time, he would not let it end like before.