As soon as the two had gotten up from the back of the boat, she had escaped to the guest room almost on instinct, closing the door behind her before leaning against it with a slow, shaky breath.

What had she done?

Her fingers drifted to her lips again before she caught herself. She lowered her hand with a frustrated sigh and decided to cross to the bathroom instead.

Steam quickly filled the small room as the shower warmed. She stepped beneath the spray and closed her eyes, letting the water run over her hair and shoulders. It should have steadied her. It should have washed away the lingering taste of salt and wine, the memory of his mouth against hers.

It didn't.

Every time she closed her eyes, she felt him again. The careful hesitation before he'd kissed her back. The way his hand had settled against her neck, holding her as though she might disappear if he let go. The warmth of his breath. The quiet that had settled around them until the rest of the world had simply ceased to exist.

She scrubbed at her face with both hands and laughed once under her breath, the sound soft and almost disbelieving.

She was trying to wash away a kiss she wasn't sure she wanted to forget.

When she finally shut off the water, she stood for a long moment with the towel wrapped around herself, staring at her reflection in the fogged mirror.

She looked exactly the same.

She didn't feel the same.

She dressed slowly afterward, choosing the silk pajamas and trying to convince herself that the change of clothes could somehow signal a return to normal. It didn't. The kiss followed her out of the bathroom, lingering in her thoughts no matter how many times she tried to push it aside.

By the time she slipped beneath the blankets, the cottage had grown quiet around her. Somewhere beyond the wall, she heard dishes being stacked. Liam, cleaning up dinner. She pictured him at the sink, sleeves rolled to his elbows, carrying the same focused determination he had shown that morning when breakfast had defeated him in the most human way she'd ever seen.

The silk was cool against her skin, a whisper of fabric that felt foreign after days of cotton and salt. Elena lay on her back in the guest room, staring at the ceiling beams, the memory of the kiss on the boat still burning on her mouth like a brand she couldn't stop touching.

She turned onto her side, then onto her back again. The sheets were soft, the pillow cool, the room dim and quiet. None of it mattered. Her body was still buzzing with the memory of the kiss—the press of his lips, the taste of salt and wine, the way his hand had cradled the back of her head as if she were something precious. She could still feel it, still remember the way the world had gone quiet when he kissed her.

Her chest ached. Not from her ribs—those still protested when she breathed too deeply, but she had gotten used to the discomfort, learned to ignore the sharp reminders of what happened beneath her skin. This ache was different. It wasn’t physical. It was something she couldn’t name and couldn’t stop.

The dishes stopped. Footsteps, slow and unhurried, crossed the cottage floor. A door opened. Closed. The soft click of a latch settling into place.

Silence.

A few moments later, she heard the bathroom door open down the hall. Water began to run, its steady rush faintly carrying through the walls. Liam was showering. The realization made her think of him beneath the hot water, washing away the salt and heat of the day, and despite herself, the image brought the kiss rushing back with it.

She tried to push the thought aside. Instead, she found herself listening to the muted sound of the shower until it stopped. Then she listened as the door opened again. Footsteps crossed the hallway, slower this time, and then came the quiet creak of his bedroom door.

He was in his room now. The door between them was closed, but the weight of him remained. It was strange how easily she could feel his absence when, not long ago, she had wanted nothing more than to escape his presence.

Elena pressed her palms over her face. The darkness behind her eyelids was full of images she couldn't shut out: his mouth on hers, his hand in her hair, the way his eyes had gone soft and searching when she'd leaned in. And underneath all of it, the other things. The things she couldn't un-know.

Sebastian Hart's card, tucked into the inner pocket of her bag in the corner of this room. She had carried it with her as a possibility. A quiet reminder that she still had a choice.

But every time she thought about using it, something twisted inside her. Because leaving would mean admitting that everything between her and Liam had only ever been what she feared it was—a cage. And she wasn't sure anymore if that was the truth.

Alexander's voice at the gala still haunted her. He planned it. The debt. Your brother. All of it. And then there was the notebook—the pages of names, notes, and connections she had photographed with shaking hands. Two different pieces of evidence pointing toward the same impossible question: who was Liam Thorn really?

But the more she learned, the less simple the answer became.

Because she had seen pieces of him he never showed the world. She had read his mother's words, watched him fail miserably at making breakfast, listened as he spoke about losing his parents with a grief that still lived beneath his carefully controlled exterior. She had seen Liam Thorn the man, not just Liam Thorn the name.

And she loved him.

That was the part she couldn't deny anymore. Even if she still had questions. Even if the notebook remained unfinished and unanswered. She loved him, and she didn't know if she could trust him. The two truths existed together, impossible to separate, each one pressing against the other with every heartbeat.

The generator hummed somewhere outside, a steady pulse that matched the rhythm of her heart. Waves slapped against the dock, rhythmic and indifferent. The cottage settled around her, creaking softly, and she lay there in the dark, wide awake, her body heavy with exhaustion that wouldn't come.

She counted the beats of the generator. Twenty. Thirty. It didn't help.

That sound. It had undone something in her.

And maybe that was what frightened her most. Not the kiss. Not the way her body still remembered him. But the fact that after everything—the contract, the secrets, the questions—she still wanted to close the distance between them.

She didn't know what that meant. She didn't know if it was trust or longing or simply the aftermath of almost losing him beneath the water.

But she knew she couldn't keep lying there pretending she didn't feel it.

She sat up, the silk whispering against the sheets, the cool air raising goosebumps along her arms. Her gaze moved to the door of her room, then to the window where the moon hung low over the water, silver and full.

Her feet touched the floor before she could convince herself not to move. The wooden boards were warm beneath her bare soles, worn smooth by years of footsteps through the cottage. She stood there for a moment, one hand resting against the doorframe, listening to the quiet of the room and the uneven rhythm of her own thoughts.

She should stay. She should crawl back beneath the blankets, close her eyes, and let exhaustion take over. She should not walk down the hallway. She should not open his door. She should not allow herself to want something that was still tangled with so much she couldn't untangle—the debt, the contract, the company she'd lost, the brother she had spent so long trying to protect.

But wanting Liam had never been simple.

She thought of Marco. His laugh. The way he always forgot to call their parents back until their mother threatened to drive across the city just to make sure he was alive and eating properly. She thought of the debt that had started everything, the trap he hadn't known he was walking into, the damage it had caused before either of them understood what was happening.

Then she thought of Liam.

The way his hand had cradled the back of her head as if she were something precious instead of something he was trying to control. The way he'd looked at her afterward, like he was just as shaken by what had passed between them as she was.

The floor creaked softly beneath her as she crossed the room. She moved slowly, giving herself every opportunity to stop, but she never did. Her fingers wrapped around the handle, and she eased the door open, wincing at the quiet click of the latch before slipping into the hallway.

The cottage rested beneath the moonlight, still and quiet. The kitchen sat in shadow. The shelves of old books lined the walls, holding pieces of a life she had once ignored but now found herself wanting to understand. Her bare feet carried her silently past the bathroom, past the small alcove with the worn armchair, until she reached the door at the end of the hall.

She stopped at his door; her hand hovered inches from the wood. Nothing came from the other side. No footsteps. No movement. No indication that he was awake or asleep. He could already be lost in dreams, or he could be lying there just as restless as she was, staring at the ceiling and replaying the same moment over and over again.

The thought made her heart tighten.

She could turn around. She could return to her room and pretend this was only a moment of weakness. She could keep the distance between them, keep holding onto the reasons she was supposed to be afraid of him.

But the truth was, the distance had started to feel harder than the uncertainty.

The kiss had changed something. She had felt it in the way he had gone still before kissing her back, as if he had been fighting the same distance she had.

She wanted to know what it felt like to be close to him without fear between them. She wanted to feel his arms around her, to hear his heartbeat beneath her cheek, to wake up beside him and pretend, just for one night, that everything between them wasn't complicated.

That everything wasn't broken.

Her fingers closed around the handle. The metal was cool against her palm.

The generator still hummed softly in the distance. Waves rolled against the dock outside, their steady rhythm filling the silence. Somewhere beyond the cottage, an owl called into the darkness.

Elena turned the handle.

The door opened without a sound, the hinges moving smoothly, and she stepped inside.

The room was dark except for the pale light spilling through the window. Her eyes adjusted slowly, finding the shape of the bed, the rise of the blankets, the silhouette of Liam lying beneath them. He was still and she couldn't tell if he was sleeping. That uncertainty made her pause.

Then she breathed in.

The scent of him reached her first.

Cedar and salt. The faint trace of the sea from earlier, mixed with something warmer that belonged only to him. It was the same scent she had noticed that morning when she had buried her face against his shoulder, the same one her mind had tried to ignore and her body had remembered anyway.

Before she could stop herself, she stepped farther into the room.

The floorboard beneath her foot gave a quiet groan.

She froze.

Her heart raced as she watched him, waiting for any sign of movement, but he remained still. Slowly, she released the breath she had been holding and continued forward.

She crossed the room carefully, the silk of her pajamas whispering against her skin, until she reached the edge of the bed.

Liam lay on his back, one arm resting above his head, the blanket gathered low at his waist. His breathing was slow and even, his face softened in sleep in a way she had never seen while he was awake, stripped of the control and intensity he carried everywhere else.

Her eyes lingered on the scar near his shoulder, the pale line cutting through his skin beneath the moonlight.

She remembered the fear of that day in the alleyway, the moment when Liam had stepped between her and danger without hesitation. He had never asked if she trusted him. He had never waited for permission. He had simply put himself in harm’s way because he had chosen her safety over his own.

The scar was a reminder of the parts of Liam Thorn she still didn't know how to reconcile—the man who had taken control of her life and the man who had bled to protect it.

Her fingers twitched with the urge to trace it, to understand how something that had once represented fear could now make her chest tighten for an entirely different reason.

She lifted the blanket. The air inside was already warm, heavy with his heat, and she slipped in beside him before she could think about what she was doing. The mattress dipped under her weight. His breathing didn't change.

She lay on her side, facing him, close enough to feel the warmth radiating off his body but not touching. The silk of her pajamas was cool against her skin, a strange contrast to the heat of him. She could smell him here, up close, that cedar-and-salt scent filling her lungs, and something in her chest loosened, a knot she hadn't known she was carrying.

She didn't mean to move closer. But her body had its own ideas, and before she knew it she'd shifted, curling toward him, her knees brushing his thigh, her forehead hovering an inch from his shoulder. She could hear his breathing now, slow and deep, and she matched her own to it, letting the rhythm pull her under.

His arm moved. She felt it more than saw it—the shift of the mattress, the displacement of air—and then his hand found her back, warm and broad, settling against the silk of her pajama top. He didn't open his eyes. He just pulled her closer, a soft, sleepy sound escaping his throat, and she went willingly, curling into the warmth of him as her body had finally found the quiet it had been searching for.

"Elena," he murmured.

Her name was barely more than a breath, rough with sleep, but it carried enough awareness to make her freeze. For a moment, she wondered if she had imagined it. If she had only wanted him to know she was there so badly that her mind had created the sound.

"I couldn't sleep," she whispered.

The confession came out smaller than she intended. Her face rested against his chest, her cheek pressed to the warmth of his skin, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath her ear. Something was grounding about it. Something that made the chaos in her head quiet, even if only for a moment.

His hand moved slowly up her back, warm and steady, the touch instinctive even through the haze of sleep. His fingers traced the curve of her spine through the silk, and he pulled her closer without hesitation. Then he pressed his lips gently against her forehead.

"I'm here," he whispered. That was all. There was no questions. No demands. No asking why she had come to him in the middle of the night or what she needed from him, and no attempt to make her explain the fear and confusion she had carried since the moment she walked into his life.

Just two words. That somehow made her feel like she could finally stop fighting.

She lifted her head slightly to look at him. His eyes were open now, dark and soft in the moonlight, the sharpness and control he carried during the day replaced by something far more vulnerable. He looked at her like she was something he still couldn't believe he was allowed to have.

His hand rose to cup her jaw, his thumb brushing gently across her cheek before he leaned down and pressed another kiss to her forehead. A kiss so gentle it made her chest ache.

"Stay," he whispered. The word should have sounded like an order coming from him. Instead, it sounded almost like a soft request.

"I'm not going anywhere," she whispered back.

The words settled between them, carrying a truth she wanted desperately to believe, even as another part of her knew there were still questions waiting for her in the morning. The card in her bag. The pages of his notebook. Alexander's warning that still lingered in the corners of her mind.

But not tonight.

Tonight, she let herself be here.

He pulled her closer, tucking her beneath his chin, his arm wrapping around her like he was afraid that if he loosened his hold, she might disappear. She allowed herself to sink into him—the warmth of his body, the familiar scent of cedar and salt, the steady rise and fall of his breathing.

For the first time in days, she allowed herself to stop searching for answers. Just for tonight.

Curled against Liam Thorn, Elena closed her eyes and let the sound of his heartbeat carry her down into sleep.