Page 47 of The Sound of Seduction (Miracles on Harley Street #4)

F ootsteps pounded against the floorboards in the hallway, each stomp sending a jolt through Wendy’s chest. Nick’s voice, sharp as a razor and rising with purpose, grew louder. She clutched Felix’s hands reflexively.

Felix didn’t flinch. He didn’t even look at the door. Instead, his eyes held hers like a lifeline. He gave her fingers a firm squeeze. “Whatever comes through that door,” he said, his voice low but brimming with sincerity, “know this—I’m here for you. Always. Right by your side.”

Those words pierced something in her. Wendy blinked, but it was useless; the first tear slid down her cheek as more threatened to follow. Felix reached up, brushing the trail away with his thumb with the gentleness of someone who had seen her grow from scraped knees to heartbreak.

“Listen to me, Wendy.” He shifted closer, his broad shoulders framing her, shielding her from some unseen storm.

“If you’re truly in love—if this is the kind that only comes once in a life—you fight for it.

Do you hear me? Fight for it with everything you have.

Because if you don’t…” His voice wavered just slightly, heavy with his own unspoken memories.

“If you don’t, the regret will be something you’ll carry forever like me. ”

The weight of his words hit her like a crashing wave. He understood that sort of thing. He had loved and lost, and he never quite recovered.

The knot in her throat tightened, and Wendy had to bite her lip to stop the sob clawing its way up. Fight for it. Was she brave enough for that?

The footsteps grew louder—closer—until she saw the unmistakable grip of a hand rounding the banister outside. Nick. Wendy’s heart climbed up to her throat.

But Felix didn’t falter. He gave her hands one more heartfelt squeeze before standing, his frame towering over her.

“Love, Wendy,” he said, his voice a little softer now, “when it comes, it’s yours.

It’s between a man and a woman, not society, countries, or anyone else who tries to meddle like List. Nobody else has the right to take it away from you. Don’t forget that.”

The door flew open further, crashing against the wall with enough force to rattle the glass in the windows.

Nick came first, stepping through like a thunderstorm in human form, his brows furrowed, and his lips set tight enough to crack stone.

Alfie and Andre followed seconds after, their faces split between bewilderment and something bordering on amusement.

And Stan—Wendy’s heart pitched at the sight of him.

He lingered in the back as though that might somehow save him, his fingers twitching nervously at his sides, a prince momentarily dethroned in the wake of Nick’s fury.

Nick’s eyes locked on Wendy immediately, flicking briefly to Felix with what could only be called thinly veiled disdain. “Gwendolyn Folsham,” he said, the words as sharp as a blade, “what do you call this ?”

Wendy sucked in a breath, scrambling for something to say, but her entire body had gone traitorously still. Beside her, Felix gave the faintest shake of his head, a quiet warning not to panic.

“I’ll tell you what it is,” Felix said smoothly, his voice calm but crisp enough to cut through the tension. “It’s a moment that calls for love and understanding, not scorn.”

Nick crossed his arms, his gaze narrowing on Felix in that frightening way only big brothers could manage. “And you’re the authority on that, are you?”

Felix smiled faintly, crossing his own arms as though Nick wasn’t a tempest in human form.

“I’m the authority on her. I always have been.” Wendy’s pulse jumped. Nick’s protectiveness could be suffocating—but it was love, unmistakable and fierce.

Felix’s tone shifted then, quieter but firm enough to hold Nick in place.

“And I can tell you this—it’s not your anger she needs right now.

It’s your ear. Your patience. Because whatever’s in her heart…

” He glanced briefly at Wendy, then at Stan, and back to Wendy, his expression softening into something almost tender. “It’s real. That much I can tell.”

He was doing it again.

The room hung quiet for an agonizing beat, the only sound the faint whistle of wind through the slightly open window.

Wendy blinked up at Felix, her heart swelling, her throat tightening as guilt and love and warmth tangled into one chaotic storm inside her chest. He had always been her anchor, her fiercest protector since that day Nick came home crying—the day their parents had died in the accident.

Felix had been there, the only one who could hold her still when the world felt like it might crack wide open and swallow her into an abyss—and in that moment, she was infinitely grateful for him.

And now again.

Nick moved first, his weight shifting with slow deliberation as he stared at Wendy. “Is that true?” he asked, his tone a shade softer than before, though the question still brooked no nonsense.

Wendy opened her mouth to answer, but the words didn’t come at first. Her eyes flicked to Stan in the back, who looked caught somewhere between terror and adoration.

She sucked in a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and summoned every ounce of Felix’s words that still echoed within her chest.

“It is,” she said, her words quiet but steady. “It is, Nick.”

And though his frown didn’t disappear entirely, there was a moment—a flicker in his gaze—that softened. Behind him, Alfie sighed audibly, and Andre glanced at the ceiling as if to consult the heavens.

Still, Felix didn’t move from where he stood in front of her, unmoving, unflinching. Because he’d always been there when she needed him most, even the day when her parents died. And this moment, she knew, would be no different.

Stan’s presence pulled at her like the irresistible tug of the tide.

The room, crowded as it was with furious faces and Felix’s unyielding calm, fell away as her gaze locked onto his.

He stood frozen in the doorway, one hand gripping the frame as though to steady himself, his weight shifting nervously from foot to foot.

He wasn’t like the others—he wasn’t storming, demanding, or scowling.

He simply was there, and somehow that was enough to undo her completely.

Her breath hitched as her eyes drank him in—every detail vivid and devastating.

The faint flush high on his cheekbones betrayed the battle inside him, though he tried to school his expression into something neutral.

His golden-brown hair was tousled and he didn’t seem as regal, more boyish.

Vulnerable. But his eyes—oh, his eyes—were what unraveled her.

They held hers in rapt attention, wide and searching, asking questions with no words.

Questions she wasn’t sure she could answer yet, but couldn’t look away from.

And then it struck her, the cruel poetry of it all.

Here he stood, at the edge of her chaos but entirely inside her heart, closer than anyone else despite the distance he kept.

He hadn’t moved toward her. He hadn’t demanded anything of her.

He was simply present, steady in a world that felt like it was tilting sideways.

And he hadn’t left. Not when it might’ve been easier.

Not when it would’ve been safer for him, considering Nick’s overprotective fury.

“I’m in love with him.” she said. “I love Prince Stan.”

*

Stan froze, his grip on the doorframe the only thing anchoring him to the spinning world. Her voice should not have sounded like that—not so soft, not so deliberate. Certainly not shaped around his name as if it carried every ounce of her heart.

His name.

That alone sent his chest into turmoil, but her eyes—those sharp, fiercely intelligent eyes—were fixed only on him. The weight of her gaze pinned him in place. He should have braced himself, prepared for whatever storm flew from her lips next. But he hadn’t prepared for this.

Not for her words. Not for the way it felt.

Wendy loved him.

The thought landed hard in his chest, knocking the breath clean from his lungs. Wendy, the quick-witted, bold, maddening Wendy—a woman who could stare down her brothers’ tempers, care for the sick with hands steadier than his own, and make him spin out of orbit with a single look—loved him?

His heart stammered against his ribs like it wanted to escape, but his feet refused to obey.

Her voice reached him again, trembling but sure. “You stayed.”

It landed like a vow.

Nick, Alfie, Andre, and Felix turned toward him in unison, without a word, and yet there was shuffling in the room.

The words struck him, not a blow but a weight that shifted his footing in some irreversible way.

“Of course, I stayed.” He might’ve been standing on the threshold now, practically wrapped in shadows while she stood framed by light, but his heart had long since crossed the divide to her side. It had done so quietly, without fanfare, yet…she had noticed. She knew .

He’d already told her how he felt.

How long he’d felt like that for her.

It seemed like forever for it was as though his heart had been made only for her.

His throat worked as he swallowed, but his voice—when he finally found it—emerged frayed and uneven.

“I thought…” Another pause, the crack in his tone exposing the parts of himself he had always tried to keep hidden.

He cleared his throat, but there was no salvaging this.

“I thought maybe you’d need me.” Her shoulders dropped, a fleeting but unmistakable sign of relief.

It unraveled the last knot of doubt curling stubbornly in his gut. “You do, don’t you?”

The question escaped before his mind could weigh it, his voice softer this time, slipping into uncharted waters of its own accord. Vulnerability. Hope. All of it bound together in one fragile plea.

Her answer came as an exhale, a single word so delicate it could’ve shattered in the air. “Yes.”