The kiss broke, and the world rushed back in a roar of rain and ragged breaths.
My lips tingled, cold and warm at once. Rainwater streamed down my face, but his thumbs were there, sweeping it away in slow, deliberate strokes that felt more intimate than the kiss itself. I could feel the frantic thud of my own pulse in my throat, a wild drumbeat against the cage of my ribs. His grey eyes were dark, unreadable pools, holding me captive in the downpour.
"K..Kaelen... I..."
"It's alright. Come on."
His voice was a low rasp, stripped of all its polished edges. It wasn't a command; it was an anchor in my swirling chaos. His hand, large and warm, slid from my cheek to the small of my back, a solid pressure that guided more than led. I felt unsteady, my heels slipping on the wet pavement, but his presence was an immovable wall beside me.
He helped me into the car, his hand a brief, steadying weight on my elbow. I collapsed into the leather seat, a pool of water already forming around me. He didn't seem to notice his own ruined suit, his soaked hair. His focus was entirely on me.
"To my residence," he told the driver, his voice regaining its authority but layered with a new, quiet intensity.
The door thudded shut, sealing us in a cocoon of sudden silence, broken only by the hammering rain on the roof. The shivering started then, violent, uncontrollable tremors that made my teeth chatter. The adrenaline was receding, leaving me naked and freezing in its wake.
"K-Kaelen," I stammered, the words fighting their way past my chattering teeth. My mind, ever the strategist, scrambled for control. "My home... it's just nearby... I ca—"
"Don't worry."
The sound was so soft, so utterly unexpected, it stole the air from my lungs. He reached for a spare coat in the car, shaking it out with a quiet, efficient snap. Then he was wrapping it around my shoulders, his movements deliberate, careful. His fingers brushed against the sensitive skin of my neck as he tucked the wool close, and a jolt, entirely separate from the cold, shot straight down my spine.
"Look at you," he murmured, his gaze a physical touch as it swept over my drenched hair, my trembling form. "You're frozen to the bone." His eyes met mine, and in their depths, I saw not pity, but a fierce, protective certainty. "Showing up like this... they'll have questions. Questions you shouldn't have to answer tonight. Not when you're like this."
His thumb gently stroked a wet, tangled strand of hair from my cheek. The gesture was so tender, so possessive, it made my throat ache with an emotion I couldn't name.
"Dry off. Get warm," he said, his voice low and firm. "I'll have you home safely after. No one needs to know."
I could only nod, my words trapped somewhere deep inside me. I pulled the blanket tighter, burying my fingers in the soft wool. It carried his scent—sandalwood and the crisp, clean air after a storm. A different kind of warmth began to seep into my ice-locked veins, a dangerous, quiet thaw.
His penthouse was a revelation, very much like when I came the last time. Silence. Not the heavy, waiting silence of the Sterling mansion, but a peaceful, expansive quiet. The air was cool and smelled of sandalwood and old books. Our footsteps were muffled by a thick, dark rug as he led me down a hallway.
He opened a door to a bathroom all in shades of stone and slate. "The shower is through there. Towels are in the cabinet." He paused in the doorway, his frame filling it. His eyes, still intense, scanned my face once more. "Take all the time you need."
The door clicked shut, and I was alone.
I stood there for a long moment, dripping onto the perfect, grey-tiled floor, my mind a riot of sensation and memory.
The pressure of his mouth on mine. Not gentle, but desperate. The feel of his hands in my hair. The low sound he made in his throat. The way I kissed him back, not as a strategy, but as a need. A need to find an anchor, a pillar in the waves and storm.
I stumbled into the glass-walled shower, fumbling with the taps until a torrent of near-scalding water erupted from the rainfall showerhead. I stood under it, letting the heat beat against my skin, hoping it would either cleanse me of the memory or brand it into me forever. Steam filled the room, fogging the glass.
It felt real. It felt like being found.
But then, the old ghost stirred, its voice a cold whisper in the steam.
So did Liam's love, once. So did his promises. Is this just a more elegant cage? A more sophisticated trap? What does a man like Kaelen Vancourt truly want from me? Is this another of the Vancourt set up?
The heat seeped into my muscles, but the fear remained, a cold, hard knot in the pit of my stomach.
Wrapped in a bathrobe so impossibly soft it felt like being embraced by a cloud, I faced my next problem. My dress was a sodden heap on the floor. What was I supposed to wear? The robe back to the mansion?
A soft knock at the door made me jump. I opened it a cautious crack.
Flora stood there, her expression kind. In her hands was a neat stack of clothes: a cream-colored cashmere sweater that looked like a whisper, elegant black trousers, and, placed discreetly on top, a set of delicate, lace-trimmed undergarments. All new. All with the tags meticulously removed.
"Master Kaelen had these brought over while you were in the shower," she said, her voice gentle.
She left before I could even form a word of thanks, leaving me holding the clothes.
I lifted the cashmere sweater, holding it to my face. It was unbelievably soft. My size. Exactly my size. Not a rough estimate, but precise. He hadn't just guessed; he had known. In the midst of the emotional tempest, the frantic escape, the screaming in the rain, he had paid enough attention to know the exact dimensions of my body.
The walls I had so painstakingly rebuilt around my heart didn't just crack. They trembled, dust drifting down into the newly vulnerable spaces within.
Dressed in his chosen clothes—clothes that fit me more perfectly than anything in my own wardrobe, that felt like they were made for the woman I was beneath the armor—I padded barefoot back into the living room. A fire crackled in the granite hearth, casting dancing, warm shadows across the minimalist furniture. The room was deliciously warm. And it smelled of woodsmoke and... rich, dark chocolate.
Two mugs of steaming hot cocoa sat on the low coffee table, a tiny curl of steam rising from each. Not coffee. Not the whisky he always seemed to have in his hand. Cocoa.
He was standing by the fireplace, silhouetted against the flames, a crystal tumbler of amber liquid in his hand. He turned as I entered, his gaze sweeping over me, from my bare feet to the sweater that hugged my form. A slow, almost imperceptible nod. Approval. Not of my appearance, but of the rightness of it.
"Better?" he asked. His voice was quiet, meant just for the space between us.
I just nodded, sinking into the deep embrace of a leather armchair. I cradled the warm mug in my hands, the heat a comfort against my palms. The silence stretched, but it wasn't empty or awkward. It was thick and heavy, laden with the memory of the kiss, the echo of the rain, the weight of his pledge, and the thousand questions screaming in my head.
I couldn't bear it anymore. The not-knowing was a sharper pain than the betrayal.
"Why, Kaelen?" The question came out a hoarse whisper. I forced myself to look up, to meet his gaze across the flickering firelight. "Why are you doing all of this?" I gestured weakly to the clothes, the fire, the childish comfort of the cocoa. "Were all these for the favor you mentioned? What is the favor? What do you actually want from me?"
He didn't look away. He didn't get defensive. He simply placed his mug down on the mantelpiece and moved to sit in the armchair opposite me. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, steepling his fingers. His expression was completely, terrifyingly open.
"The favor I mentioned," he began, his voice low and measured, "was, at its inception, a matter of pure pragmatism. I need a wife. Someone to stand by me to fend off the unwanted attention."
The air left my lungs in a silent rush. My grip tightened on the mug. That's what it was. He was protecting the reputation of 'his wife'. It doesn't matter who it was. Just that it was Mrs Vancourt.
He noticed my tensed reaction, and held up a hand, a gesture asking for patience, for trust. "You are the perfect candidate. A Sterling heiress. Poised. Graceful. Intelligent. A formidable strategic choice on paper." His eyes held mine, not allowing me to look away. "But then... things... changed as I got to know you better. You were the kid that saved my life at Lake Estermont, you had a fire in you that nobody understood. The sheer, unbreakable steel in your spine. And my... purely practical consideration... it evolved."
He leaned closer, the space between us crackling with intensity. His grey eyes were no longer unreadable; they were full of a raw, unvarnished truth that was more devastating than any practiced charm.
"I help you," he said, his voice dropping to a hushed, intense whisper that vibrated in my bones, "because somehow, the sight of you in pain makes my chest feel too tight. I help you because the thought of his hands on you, while he parades his mistress in my own hotel, makes me see red." He paused, letting the violence of that admission hang in the air.
He reached out then, his fingers gently brushing against mine where they were clenched white around the warm mug. The touch was electric, a jolt of pure, undiluted sensation.
"I'm helping you," he breathed, "because I have come to care for you. More than I should."
His fingers curled, just slightly, around mine.
"And I am asking you," he whispered, the words a vow and a question, "to consider what I said in the rain. To let me be the one who stands beside you."