Page 13 of Surprise Me Tonight (Claimed on Sight #1)

Stella

I lower my forehead to the kitchen table.

It’s not theatrical. It’s the only way to stop my thoughts from spinning off into orbit.

Across from me, Fran watches in silence, her fingers curled around a chipped mug of tea. The only sound between us is the faint creak of my chair and the quiet tick of the old wall clock.

“You’ve got that look,” she says eventually. Calm. Observant.

I keep my head down. “I’ve got several.”

“This one says you’re either about to cry or move to Wales.”

I let out a breath. “Maybe both.”

She waits. She’s good at that. She doesn’t fill the silence just to make herself comfortable.

I lift my head slowly, my cheek flushed from the wood. “I don’t know what to do.”

Fran doesn’t blink. “About him?”

I nod .

She sits back in her chair. “Do you want him?”

The answer’s there instantly. Lodged behind my ribs. “Yes.”

It tastes dangerous.

She doesn’t ask anything else, not right away. She just waits, letting the heat of my answer settle.

“I don’t trust that this isn’t all going to fall apart,” I admit.

“He’s younger, wildly attractive, successful, and somehow he’s looking at me like I’m a fucking revelation.

And I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.

For him to change his mind, realise I’m just a middle-aged woman with stretch marks and baggage and a CV with an eighteen-year gap. ”

I look down at my tea. I haven’t touched it. It’s gone cold.

“He gave me a choice. Said he’d move me into another role if it made me uncomfortable. Said nothing would change unless I wanted it to. No pressure. No expectations.”

Fran nods once. “That’s something.”

“It is. And it made everything worse.”

“How?”

“Because if he’d been pushy or careless or dismissive, I could’ve written him off and walked away. But he wasn’t. He was…” I pause. “Kind. Honest. Maybe even a little scared, too.”

There’s a pause. Then, Fran asks gently, “And what do you want?”

“I don’t want to lose myself in someone again,” I say quietly. “Not like I did with Jeremy. But I also don’t want to run just because I’m scared he might actually mean it.”

I look up at her then .

“I kissed him again before I left. Just once. I said it was in case I decide against this. But that was a lie. I just wanted to feel it again.”

“You’re not in danger because he wants you,” Fran says. “You’re in danger because you want him, and that means letting yourself hope.”

I nod.

Then I lean forward and rest my forehead against the table once more.

Fran giggles at my theatrics before saying the words I need to hear. “He’s not Jeremy, you know.”

I don’t lift my head. “I didn’t say he was.”

“No,” she agrees, “but you’re afraid he might turn out to be. That’s what this is, isn’t it? The hesitation. The second-guessing. You think the minute you let yourself fall for someone again, they’ll start chipping away at you like he did.”

I close my eyes.

“And I get it,” she says. “I do. But Stella… this man? He’s already shown you he’s not the same.”

I lift my head, slowly.

Fran leans forward, her elbows on the table now. “Jeremy wanted you quiet. Dependent. Callum’s giving you options. A choice. That’s not nothing.”

“He could still change,” I murmur. “People show their best selves at the start.”

“True. But Jeremy never gave you choices, not even on day one. He made you smaller, and he liked you like that. Callum—” she pauses, “—Callum sees you. You’re in his head. You’ve rattled him. And he’s not running from it.”

I press my thumb into the rim of my mug. The tea’s stone cold now, but I keep holding it .

“I just don’t want to hand someone else the power to break me,” I whisper.

Fran softens. “You didn’t hand it over last time. It was taken.”

I stare at the table.

“You’re not the same woman anymore,” she adds. “You know who you are now. And you’ve come too far to let anyone drag you back into the dark — and I don’t think he wants to. I think he’s just hoping like hell you let him in.”

The clock ticks again. Somewhere outside, a bird calls once and stops. The whole room feels full and still and unbearably quiet.

“I think I already have,” I say, barely above a whisper.

Fran nods once, like she’s been waiting for me to catch up with myself.

Then she leans back in her chair and says, perfectly deadpan, “Oh good. Now that we’ve established your emotional collapse, can we finally discuss the important thing?”

I blink at her.

She lifts her mug. “How was the sex?”

The question lands like a pebble dropped into water — quiet, but rippling straight through me.

I blink again, open my mouth, close it. Then let out a shaky, disbelieving breath and slump back in my chair, pressing the palms of my hands to my flushed face and whisper, “Fran.”

“Just tell me if it was worth risking your job for.”

“Fran.”

“I’m serious. Did the man deliver? ”

I drop my hands and stare at her. “I didn’t even know that sex could feel like that.”

Her grin spreads slowly. “That good, huh?”

“He ruined me. It was… intense. Like he’d been holding himself back since we first met and then just—”

“Unleashed the beast?”

“God, don’t say it like that.”

She laughs.

I shake my head, but I’m smiling now. The kind that hurts your cheeks. The kind you don’t want to admit is creeping up on you.

“I shouldn’t feel this way,” I murmur.

“Maybe not,” she says. “But you do.”

I nod. Because there’s no point denying it now.

And when I close my eyes, I see him — jaw clenched, looking at me like he’d burn for the chance to touch me again.

And my entire body answers with a heat that has nothing to do with tea.

I lie in bed staring at the ceiling, covers pulled up to my chin, the room quiet except for the occasional creak of the pipes and the low hum of the wind outside.

I should be sleeping. I should have taken a bath, made a chamomile tea, put on something mindless and gentle and safe — but instead, I’ve been staring at my phone for twenty minutes, trying to be reasonable .

Then I stop pretending I’m capable of that and type the message.

Me

Are you sleeping?

Three dots appear almost immediately. Then disappear. Then reappear.

Callum

No.

I hesitate for a second longer, then press the call button before I can talk myself out of it.

He picks up on the second ring. His voice is lower than usual, quieter, like he’s expecting bad news.

“Stella?”

“It’s nothing,” I say quickly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you—”

“You didn’t.” A pause. “I thought maybe something was wrong.”

There’s an edge in his voice that does something to my chest — not worry exactly, but concern, care, that subtle protective tone he probably doesn’t even realise he uses.

“No, nothing’s wrong,” I say. “I just… I was lying here and thinking… about these rules.”

There’s a beat of silence. And then, I swear, I hear a smile in his voice.

“Ah. The rules .”

I grin despite myself. “I thought it might be a good idea to talk about them before we do something else reckless.”

“Smart,” he says, tone soft now. More serious. “Go on, then. ”

I roll onto my side, tuck the duvet under my chin. My heart beats steadily, but louder than it should. “We keep things separate. No touching during working hours.”

“No touching?” he repeats, dry.

I raise an eyebrow to no one. “That includes desk-related activities, lingering stares, and you hovering behind me in the kitchen pretending to reach for something.”

There’s a low breath from his end — the kind that’s nearly a laugh but not quite.

“All right,” he says. “No hovering. No staring. No bending you over the desk while you’re reviewing invoices.”

“Exactly.”

Silence stretches. Comfortable, but charged.

He speaks again, voice more grounded now. “And if either of us wants to stop… we stop. No hard feelings. No fallout.”

“Yes,” I say. “And I keep my job.”

“Stella, yes . Of course. You keep your job no matter what. That’s not a line I’m willing to blur.”

I swallow. “Good.” An outside might call us both native because if it all falls apart is he really going to stick to that but for now I am willing to believe his promise.

Another pause. “Anything else?”

I hesitate. “If it starts to feel like too much, if I need space… you’ll give it?”

“I’ll give it,” he says without missing a beat. “But you have to say it. Don’t shut down on me.”

“I’m not good at this.”

“Neither am I,” he says quietly. “But I want to try. ”

I turn my head into the pillow, the phone still warm against my ear. My heart is loud in my chest. Not panicked — just alive. Awake.

“Can I tell you something?” I ask, barely above a whisper.

“Anything.”

I pause. Long enough for the silence to stretch. I almost tell him never mind. Almost say it’s late, that I’m tired, that it doesn’t matter.

But it does.

“It wasn’t just a bad marriage,” I say, slowly. “It was… erosion. Quiet, constant. The kind that makes you question whether it was ever really yours, or if you just wandered into someone else’s version of who you were meant to be.”

He says nothing. And somehow, that makes it easier to keep going.

“Jeremy didn’t hit me. He didn’t yell. But he chipped away at me until I was just… small. Useful. Convenient. He didn’t want a partner. He wanted a personal assistant who knew when to smile and when to disappear.”

I hear the shift in Callum’s breath — subtle, but present.

“I stayed because of Vicky. And when she left, I realised I had no idea who I was without her, or him, or the version of myself I kept pretending was fine. So I left. And now I’ve rebuilt this life, piece by piece. Carefully. Quietly.”

Another breath. “And I’m scared,” I say. “Not of you, exactly. Just… of wanting something again that could pull it all apart.”

There’s a long pause. For a second, I think maybe I’ve said too much. Maybe I’ve loaded the moment with too much weight, too much truth .

But then he speaks, and his voice is low and steady and completely different.

“Stella,” he says, “you’re not someone who gets pulled apart.”

I don’t speak. I’m not sure I can.

“You’re made of tougher stuff than that. You’re—” his voice falters, like he’s choosing his words carefully, “—you’re stardust. The kind that doesn’t ask to be held, only to be seen. The kind that makes people realise they’ve been walking blind.”

My chest stutters.

“You didn’t crumble,” he adds. “You left. You built something better. That’s not weak. That’s fucking extraordinary.”

I close my eyes, and for a moment I don’t feel like I’m lying in bed alone. I feel like I’m standing somewhere steady, and someone’s finally keeping watch while I rest.

“You’re going to be fine,” he says gently. “And I’ll be careful. With you. Always.”

A tear slips sideways across my cheek. I let it fall.

“If I ever do something that makes you uncomfortable,” he says, “you have to tell me. Straight away. Don’t hold it in. Don’t give me the benefit of the doubt.”

My chest tightens. “Okay.”

“I mean it, Stella. Not just about sex or work. Anything. If I snap. If I get distant. If something feels off. I want to hear it from you, not guess it and screw it up worse.”

I nod before I realise he can’t see me. “I will.”

He exhales — slow and full, like he’s been holding something in too. “Good. Because you deserve better than being left in the dark. ”

I shift slightly in bed, the phone still pressed to my ear, my voice quieter now. “This doesn’t feel like the dark.”

“No,” he says. “It doesn’t.”

“Thanks for taking my call, but it’s late—”

“Any time… you can call me any time.” There is no doubt that he means it.

“Night,” I say quickly because if I don’t end the call now I may end up begging him to come over.

“Night, Stardust.”

Fuck, how is a woman supposed not to swoon at that?