Page 10

I’m painfully aware of everything in the small space: the creak of the old wood beneath us, the dampness in the air, and the heat radiating off his body like he’s built from some kind of living furnace.

I shift again, pretending it’s for comfort, but really, it’s because he’s so close . He’s not touching or invading my space. He’s just there , like a storm cloud looming with perfect posture and black ops training.

“Nice of you to drop by,” I say, twisting my hair into a lazy bun. “You stalking all my secret spots now, or is this just a creepy coincidence?”

Silas doesn’t blink or smirk. He’s maddeningly unreadable, like every thought is filed behind reinforced steel and years of military clearance.

“You left the perimeter,” he finally says.

“Jesus.” I laugh, short and bitter. “I left my house.”

“You left the surveillance zone.”

“Oh no. Not the sacred surveillance zone,” I mock, widening my eyes. “I didn’t realize I needed permission to fucking breathe without a camera in my face.”

His gaze sharpens. “If you want to breathe, Vane, you should stop flirting with threats.”

My pulse skips. There it is. That edge in his voice that both pisses me off and does terrible, shameful things to my lower region.

“You think I’m flirting?” I scoff, heat crawling up my neck. “With you ?”

“I think you’re pushing boundaries,” he says, his voice flat. “And watching to see who bites.”

“Wow. Psychology degree and biceps. I’m impressed.”

He doesn’t rise to the bait. He just shifts slightly, the fabric of his shirt pulling taut across his chest. And I hate how my eyes follow the movement like a goddamn groupie. Fuck, this man is handsome.

“I used to come here when I wanted to disappear,” I say abruptly, turning away. “Back before everything changed. Back when all this silence didn’t feel like punishment.”

Silas doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t move. He just listens, which makes me hate him a little less.

“I’d sit up here with my mom,” I go on, quieter now. “She smelled like wildflowers and chamomile. She told me stories about this life she wanted in Paris—a life with music and a bookstore with a spiral staircase.”

Silas shifts again, still silent.

“She never got any of it,” I whisper. “Just a rich husband who stopped loving her the second she got sick.”

I hear the slight catch in his breath, the first crack in that impenetrable calm.

“She was already halfway gone before the cancer,” I add, glancing down at the journal between us, tears pooling in my eyes. “And when she died, I wasn’t even with her. She was in Paris. I guess, in a way, it’s lucky she got to die in a place she loved so much.”

The air shifts, and Silas’s eyes look like he’s in pain. Maybe he’s experienced something similar.

“Your father’s an asshole,” Silas says suddenly.

I blink, caught off guard by the bluntness.

“He’s a powerful asshole,” I correct.

“Same thing.”

I glance at him. He’s not wearing the covering of placidity. Not entirely. His jaw is still tight, but his eyes have lost some of that tactical detachment. There’s something else there now. Something real . And for a second, I forget to be angry.

“You ever lost anyone?” I ask.

He meets my eyes. “Yes.”

The answer punches me harder than I expect.

“Who?” I ask.

He holds my gaze for three full seconds before saying, “Someone I failed to protect.”

My chest squeezes in a way that has nothing to do with attraction.

And then he shifts again, closer, enough that I feel the warmth of his leg near mine. It’s barely a touch, a breath apart, but the tension spirals in my stomach like a string pulled taut.

“I shouldn’t be here,” he mutters.

“Then leave,” I tell him.

“I don’t want to.”

God help me because neither do I.

The silence returns, but it’s different now.

It’s heavier and warmer, like something cracked open between us, and neither of us knows what to do with everything that spilled out.

It hums in the air—unspoken, charged, and impossible to ignore.

This man, this maddeningly perfect man, is sitting right next to me, and all I can think about is how it would feel if he touched me.

Just his hand on mine and his fingers brushing my skin.

The thought alone sends heat coiling low in my stomach.

I remind myself that he’s older. Much older. At least twenty years, maybe more. But that fact, that line I should be drawing in the sand, only blurs the longer I look at him.

Because God, he’s beautiful. And not in the airbrushed, magazine-cover kind of way. He’s beautiful in the way mountains are. Stark. Solid. Timeless. The kind of beauty that doesn’t ask for attention but commands it.

And I’m already too far gone to pretend I’m not staring.

I look down at my knees, bite the inside of my cheek, and whisper, “I need to get laid.”

Silas blinks. Then, he raises an eyebrow.

I don’t look at him, but I feel his eyes like fire and ice, colliding on my skin.

“You’re not subtle,” he says.

“And you’re not blind.”

A pause. Then his voice drops to something rough, dark. “That’s the problem.”

And suddenly, the treehouse is too small, the air too thick, and the space between us too charged to be safe. He stands slowly, his boots creaking on the wooden floor.

“I’ll wait below,” he says. “When you’re ready.”

Then he climbs down, disappearing into the mist like he was never there. Clutching the journal to my chest, I feel him still in my pulse and the fire between my thighs that I now have to deal with alone. I swear to God, if this keeps up, I will break first, but it’ll be my choice when I do.

I don’t move right away.

I hear him descend the ladder, his boots hitting each rung with that same methodical rhythm. I half expect the fog to swallow him whole, but it doesn’t. It just clings to the tree trunks, curling like smoke around the limbs, like the garden itself is holding its breath.

Eventually, I follow him. But I don’t leave just yet.

I sit back down, tucking my legs under me again, and let my head tilt back against the wooden wall. My eyes fall shut, and the journal rests on my lap. For once, I don’t feel like running. Not from this place. Not right now.

A few minutes pass. Maybe more. Then there’s the soft creak of the ladder again. One step. Two. Then nothing. He’s not climbing. He’s waiting.

I sigh, not with annoyance but with something dangerously close to understanding.

“Fine,” I mutter.

He comes back up. This time, he doesn’t hover near the edge. He settles across from me, his elbows resting on his knees, the faint light of dawn painting his features in pale gold and shadow.

And we just sit. Two silhouettes suspended in mist and tranquility.

The sky turns from indigo to rose behind the estate, and the garden begins to glow. Slowly and gently, like a secret it’s trying to keep. From here, the world looks softer, like the estate isn’t a prison but a place untouched by time.

I glance sideways at him. From this angle, from a distance, we could be anything.

Two lovers. Two ghosts. Two strangers who never belonged anywhere but finally found a place to not belong together.

“You didn’t stop me from coming here,” I say quietly, breaking the stillness.

His gaze is steady. “You didn’t want to be stopped.”

I turn to look at him. There’s no smirk on my lips, no challenge in my eyes. Just the truth. And something else I don’t want to name.

I don’t smile. But I don’t look away either.

And for a single fragile moment, the war between us—the obsession, the power plays, the push and pull—goes quiet.

When I finally climb down, my fingers are stiff from the chill, and my brain is screaming at me with a hundred contradictions. One of them, the loudest, says, You need to get laid before you do something you can’t take back.

I pull out my phone and shoot off a text. You up? Let’s meet at the same place at around eight.

The message is for Jake. Easy and familiar Jake. He knows the drill. No small talk, no expectations, just release. And right now, I need release more than I need air.

I glance over my shoulder.

Silas stands a few yards away, half-shrouded in mist with his arms folded, looking like sin incarnate with an actual license to kill.

I raise two fingers in a mocking little salute. “Back to your post, Creed.”

He says nothing, but I catch the strain in his face before I turn and strut back inside like I didn’t just offer myself up to chaos.

Let him watch. Let him burn.