Page 19 of The Sound Between Us (Vinyl Hearts #1)

on the hill

Harrison

My house sits perched in the Hills. All glass and steel and views. The kind of place that looks impressive in architectural magazines but feels hollow when you’re actually living in it.

Tonight, though, with Seren curled into the corner of my Italian leather sofa, it feels different.

She’s tucked her feet underneath her, still wearing that black dress from the ceremony but barefoot now, her makeup long since cried off.

There’s something translucent about her skin in the warm light.

Beautiful and broken and here. In my space. Trusting me not to make it worse.

Fuck, I could make it so much worse.

I move around her carefully. Water first, a proper glass, not the plastic bottles I usually grab. Then I raid my closet for options she can change into if she wants. An old university sweatshirt, soft joggers that will drown her but at least they’re clean.

“Do you need anything?” I set the water on the coffee table within reach. “Food? I could run you a bath?”

She looks up at me with those dark eyes that seem to hold too much. “I don’t know what I need. I don’t know anything right now.”

The honesty in her voice guts me. I’ve been in that place, that hollow aftermath where everything you thought you knew about yourself gets stripped away in public.

The difference is, when it happened to me, I had an army of handlers to control the narrative.

She has nothing but the clothes on her back and whatever trust she’s placed in me.

She trusted me enough to leave with me.

Christ, don’t fuck this up.

“I can’t go back to London.” Her voice is small, defeated. “Not yet. Not with this all over the papers tomorrow.”

“You don’t have to go anywhere. Stay as long as you need.”

The words are out before I can stop them, but I mean them. Whatever this costs me—time, privacy, the careful boundaries I’ve spent years constructing—she can have it.

She studies my face. “Harrison... what is this? What are we doing?”

The question hangs in the air between us, loaded with everything we’re not saying. I can see in her eyes that she’s asking if there’s something real between us, if tonight means what I think it means, if the connection we felt in London was worth blowing up her entire life for.

I want to tell her this is everything. I want to cross the room and show her exactly what this is, what we could be if we let ourselves.

Instead, I give her the safe answer. “Whatever you need it to be. No pressure. No expectations.”

The lie tastes bitter in my mouth, but I tell myself it’s the right thing to say. She needs space to heal, not another man who wants things from her.

Something shifts in her expression. Confusion, maybe disappointment. I see the moment she realises I’m treating her carefully, being protective in a way that feels more like rejection than care.

But she doesn’t call me on it. Instead, she nods and curls deeper into the sofa cushions, withdrawing from me in a way that makes my chest ache.

“Are you hungry? I could order something, or?—”

“You cook?”

There’s genuine surprise in her voice, the idea of Harrison Carter knowing his way around a kitchen somehow incongruous with everything else she knows about me.

“Had to learn.” I head toward the kitchen, needing the movement, needing something to do with my hands. “Grew up in a tiny terrace where Mum worked two jobs just to keep us afloat.”

She follows me, perching on one of the bar stools, and I can feel her gaze tracking my movements as I pull vegetables from the fridge.

The fridge that’s actually well stocked because I learned long ago that empty cupboards feel too much being eight years old again, waiting for Mum to come home with whatever she could afford.

“Dinner was whatever I could figure out after her second shift.” I line up ingredients with the efficiency that comes from years of cooking in tiny tour bus kitchens and hotel rooms with hot plates.

“Started with jacket potatoes, moved up to actual meals.” I glance at her, catching the way she’s studying my hands as I work.

“It was the only time things felt normal. Taking care of someone instead of just surviving.”

Her expression shifts, something raw flickering across her face. “That’s so fucked up it makes me want to cry.”

“Why?”

“Because you learned to cook out of love, and I learned to avoid kitchens because they reminded me of everything I was supposed to be grateful for.” She picks at her nails. “We’ve completely switched lives, haven’t we? You have everything now, and I’m the one running from my father’s world. ”

I stop chopping, really looking at her. The way her chin juts forward when she talks about her father, defensive and defiant. The way her shoulders curl inward.

“Why did you go with him? To LA, I mean. If you hate it all so much.”

She’s quiet for so long I think she won’t answer.

When she finally speaks, her voice is smaller, more vulnerable than I’ve heard it.

“Because the thing about Dad is, he won’t stop trying.

No matter how much I kick back, no matter how clearly I say no.

” She looks down at her hands. “He just keeps believing I’ll come around. ”

“Maybe because he loves you enough to keep trying.”

She looks at me as though I’ve just slapped her. “Don’t. Don’t make him the hero in this story.”

“I’m not, I just?—”

“You are, though. Everyone does.” That jut of her chin again, defensive.

“Poor Damon, trying so hard with his difficult daughter. Saint Damon, never giving up hope.” Her laugh is bitter and sharp.

“Do you know what it’s like to have someone love you so publicly that it becomes another kind of performance? ”

The raw honesty in her voice hits me. I set down the knife, turn to face her properly.

“No. But I know what it’s like to perform love for people who expect it from you.”

She looks up then, those dark eyes searching my face. For a moment, neither of us speaks. The kitchen fills with the sound of oil heating in the pan, the distant hum of the city below.

I push up my sleeves and get to work, falling into the rhythm of chopping vegetables, the satisfying sizzle as aromatics hit the pan. There’s meditation in it, the way each step builds on the last, the way you can lose yourself in turning raw ingredients into nourishment.

Seren watches me move around the kitchen, and I can feel her eyes on me. When I offer her a taste from the wooden spoon, blow on it first, hold my hand underneath to catch any drips, our fingers brush as she takes it from me. The contact is electric, but I pretend not to notice.

“This is... actually good. I was expecting beans on toast level competence.”

“I’m full of surprises.”

The words come out more loaded than I intended, and I see her blink, colour rising in her cheeks. The kitchen suddenly feels smaller, more intimate, filled with steam from the pan and warm light.

I can’t seem to stop myself from noticing how she looks in my kitchen.

Barefoot now, with her dress riding up slightly where she’s sitting.

Can’t stop cataloguing the way she tucks her hair behind her ear when she laughs, or how she closes her eyes when she tastes good food.

The curve of her neck when she tips her head back.

The way she bites her lower lip when she’s thinking.

Christ, why does this feel more intimate than sex?

When dinner’s ready, we eat at the kitchen island, talking about safe things. Travel, books, the view from my windows. Anything but what happened tonight, or what’s happening between us, or the fact that every casual touch feels like playing with fire.

After, I disappear upstairs and return with an armful of hotel toiletries, a fluffy robe, slippers.

“Right, so...” I dump everything on the coffee table, suddenly embarrassed by the ridiculousness of it all. “I may have gone slightly overboard with the guest amenities.”

Seren stares at the pile, then starts laughing, this gorgeous, surprised sound that makes my chest tight. “Christ, I feel as though I’m at the Ritz. Are you going to turn down my bed and leave chocolate on the pillow too? ”

“Only if you promise not to nick the bathrobe,” I say, and the grin that spreads across her face is worth every awkward second of this moment.

I show her to the guest room. Fresh towels folded with hospital corners, new toothbrush still in its packaging on the bathroom counter, water glass on the bedside table.

“You’ve thought of everything.”

I hover in the doorway, watching her take in the space. The guest room is immaculate, clearly rarely used, but comfortable. Everything designed to be welcoming without being personal.

She looks as though she wants to say more, her mouth opening slightly before she closes it again. There’s something in her expression I can’t quite read. Disappointment? Confusion?

What I want is for us to be messy and wild, but I know this isn’t the night for that. I need to earn it and the best way to start is by closing the door and walking away.

“Sleep well, Seren. Tomorrow will be better.”

“Thank you. For everything.”

I step back into the hallway and close the door between us with quiet finality.

Every instinct is screaming at me to knock on that door, to stop playing noble protector and just be honest about what I want.

Instead, I walk away.

Doing the right thing has never felt more like a mistake.