Page 80 of Unrequited

Seamus’s.

Inside, it's clean and sharp. Everything intentional. He told me he doesn’t come here often. That catches me. Where else does he go then, if not here? That thought clings.

His bedroom is a study in contradiction. Spartan and expensive. Cold in the way it looks, but not in how it feels. Like him, it doesn’t invite you in; it dares you to stay.

One whole side of the room is glass. Towering windows that stretch up, looking straight out over misty cliffs and the wide-open sea. I can’t wait to crack them open, to breathe in the salt and brine. He’s talked about the ocean so vividly, and now, I see why.

Heavy blackout curtains hang off to the side. Thick enough to blot out the world, but they’re open now, as if he likes to see into the night. To be ready. To know what’s coming.

The bed’s massive, of course it is. King-sized, dark wood, low frame, no headboard. Iron fixtures. Stark. Utilitarian. Masculine. Him.

The sheets are charcoal gray. There’s only a handful of pillows, nothing decorative, nothing soft or fussy. No clutter. Just the essentials. There’s an electric fireplacehumming quietly, and beside it, a single leather chair, scuffed and broken in. It looks like it’s lived a life or two. Maybe it belonged to someone else once. Maybe it was gifted. Either way, that chair has a story, and I can already picture him in it, watching the fire flicker in the hearth.

The hearth is old stone, rough and warm to the touch. Across from the bed, there’s a dark oak armoire. Everything else fades into quiet. Dark floorboards. Unassuming light fixtures. The faint scent of leather lingering in the air.

There’s nothing personal here, no photographs, no knickknacks. Except…

One thing on the nightstand catches my eye. It stops me.

My pink hair tie?

He looks almost sheepish when he sees me staring at it. “Aye,” he says. “You left it at the pub once. I wore it around my wrist for a bit when no one was looking. Kept it in my pocket after that. Like a little good luck charm.”

“You kept my hair tie?”

“Aye. That a problem?”

And then that glint in his eye, that challenge in his voice. “Darling, when are you going to get it through your pretty head? I escaped jail for you, Zoya. And you’re surprised I kept your hair tie?”

I wonder if he thought of it behind bars. If he wished he could have his little talisman.

I had let myself get angry with him. I gave in to that sharp, pulsing heat that flared inside me when he didn’t show up. That tightness in my chest, that sting behind my eyes, I felt it all.

It felt like my greatest fear came true.

He had used me. Just used me. Like I was nothing more than a pawn on his board. Like I was just a means to an end. That he never wanted me at all. Not really. Not Zoya Kopolova, the girl, not the woman, not the heart beating behind the name.

And while my family has never made me feel that wayintentionally, that kind of fear still lived in the corners. Maybe it comes with the territory. The youngest. The smallest. The one they kept on the sidelines, out of the blood and bone and tragedy that make up our legacy.

My brothers and sister have always known things before I did. Always protected me in their own way. In that cold, unyielding Bratva way that still feels like love, even when it cuts.

So when Seamus disappeared, after the supposed attack on my family, and I kept coming back, week after week, praying for a sign of him… I knew. I knew the truth that gutted me. He was done with me. I was a game piece he’d moved off the board.

But now… now I’m in his home.

“Let’s get to bed, love,” he says, thick and husky, like smoke and velvet.

Morning will come soon. And I know, it settles deep in my chest, that our time together is limited. That something’s going to break. I can feel it hovering just out of reach.

He looks away, his brows furrowing, like he’s trying to stop himself from saying what we both know. That this, us, is going to go fast. Too fast.

I nod, biting back everything I want to scream.

“Bed,” he says again. Firmer now.

But doesn’t he want to come too? Isn’t this the part where there are rules?

I stand there frozen, unsure, and he comes to me. Moves like a shadow over moonlight. He bends, brushes a strand of hair behind my ear, and his voice is a quiet growl that curls down my spine.