He pulls out a chair for me, deliberate, slow, as if this were a date and not a crime.
“You need to eat something,” he murmurs, voice low, brushing against my ear in a way that leaves goosebumps in its wake as he pushes my chair in. “Knowing you, you haven’t stopped moving since this morning.”
The normalcy of it—the way he doesn’t demand, doesn’t judge—twists in my chest like a blade. It drags me back years, to a teenager haunted by Jen’s sharp words, picking at my plate while he cracked a joke just long enough for me to swallow, to breathe, to forget for a moment that the world outside that kitchen was hell. That quiet, steady care, it’s still here, threaded beneath the tension, and it hurts more than I can name.
While he orders, I study him, from the shadows under his eyes, to the faint stubble on his jaw, to the barely noticeable twitch in his leg. He looks exhausted, on edge, and the sight spikes my worry as well as something deeper, hotter.
When the waiter leaves, I whisper, “You shouldn’t have come. It wasn’t worth the risk.”
He doesn’t flinch. His gaze locks on mine, sharp and certain. “I disagree. I’m done watching from the shadows, Lil’. You deserve someone in that audience, someone here just for you.I might not have pulled it off perfectly, but I’m not letting you think you have to do it alone.”
A shiver rolls through me. Not entirely from the cold. “I wasn’t alone.”
“You mean the photographer?” His jaw tightens, but his eyes never leave mine.
I roll my eyes, trying to reclaim my composure. “You don’t get to be jealous.”
He smirks, fire dancing in his eyes. “You kissed me back, Lily.”
My breath hitches. He’s not wrong, and hearing it aloud makes my pulse spike painfully. I want to run, but I also want to stay. God, do I want to stay.
“I shouldn’t have.”
“Maybe not,” he agrees quietly, with a shrug that suggests what we’re doing isn’t the single stupidest mistake we’ve both ever made. “But you did.”
The waiter returns with two glasses of white wine and a plate of croque-monsieur, cheese still bubbling. I’m grateful for the interruption. Matt sits back, pretending to give me space, though his knee presses lightly against mine under the table, a reminder that his presence is a tether I can’t escape.
For a few minutes, we eat in silence. The city carries on around us—laughter drifting from somewhere down the street, a car passing, the Rhône flowing close by. The silence is heavy, charged, but not uncomfortable. Sitting in silence, especially at night, was always one of my favourite things to do with Matt. To simply exist in the same moment without outside pressures.
When I finally look up, he’s watching me again.
“What happens now?” I ask, voice barely above the soft clink of cutlery.
His expression shifts, softening into something unguarded that has my walls lowering another inch.
“Now?” He pauses, his fingers brushing mine beneath the table, light but deliberate. “You finish your wine. I walk you home. And then…” His gaze holds mine, steady, impossible to look away from. “You can invite me in. Or you can send me away. The ball’s in your court, baby.”
Something in the weight of his gaze lights a fire inside me. Even though I should tell him no—even though logic screams that this is a disaster waiting to happen—I can’t. I want tonight to be different. I want this to be the moment he stays. The moment we’re allowed to exist without rules or fallout… even if it’s only for a little while.
By the time we leave, the city feels almost emptied out. The wind cuts sharper, and he slips his jacket around my shoulders again. The leather is still warm, carrying the faint trace of his cologne. I lean into it without thinking, intohim, into the feeling of safety, even as I know I shouldn’t.
We walk without talking, the space between us stretched thin. Every step feels measured, like we’re both braced for something we don’t want to name. Our footsteps are the only sound and when his arm shifts, when his fingers graze my wrist, the awareness hits hard and low, lighting up places I’ve tried not to think about.
His hand finds mine. Once. Then again—unhurried, intentional. A quiet test.
I give in, threading my fingers through his. His breath catches, rough and unguarded, as he curls his fingers tighteraround mine, and the weight of his ring against my finger draws up emotions I don’t want to name, sharp and insistent.
The night stretches around us, slow and weighted with everything we’re not ready to say. Desire lives beneath caution, beneath memory, beneath fear. Every glance, every brush of skin, every subtle press of his hip against my side turns the walk into something inevitable—beautiful and perilous—and I’m done trying to fight it.
Chapter 39
The moment Lily’s hand slips into mine, I feel it—a spark that makes everything else fade. The city lights, the laughter from the bistro, even the threat of Antonio catching onto the fact I’m currently lying to him, it all vanishes. There’s only her, only us, and the thread of need tying us together.
I glance at her in the streetlight.
Her eyes catch the glow—wide, startled, and a little defiant, but determined in that way that has always been fatal to my self-control. Her lips are still swollen from my kiss, a reminder I can’t stop staring at, can’t stop replaying. She’s reckless in the ways that tempt me, and irresistible beyond reason.
She’s perfect.
