I closed the last file and shut down my laptop.
The house was quiet. I checked the time. It was later than I realized. She had likely returned from practice hours ago.
I allowed myself a small, private expectation as I made my way to my bedroom. She would be in my bed. Curled on her side with a book balanced against her knee. Glasses slipping down her nose. Pretending she was not waiting for me.
The thought eased something in me.
I pushed open my bedroom door. The bed was perfectly made.
I frowned slightly.
“Belle?” I called, not loudly.
No answer. The bathroom was dark.
I crossed the hall to the library. It sat empty. The floor-to-ceiling windows reflected only my own silhouette. I checked the sitting area at the end of the corridor.
Nothing.
A faint, unwelcome tension began to coil low in my stomach.
I went downstairs toward the guest wing, toward her old room. The door was closed. That alone was wrong. She had not slept in there in weeks.
I stood outside the door for a long moment, staring at the seam of light beneath it. It wasn’t dark inside, which meant she was in there.
My hand hovered near the knob, but I did not turn it. Confusion moved through me in steady increments. We had not resolved our earlier disagreement, but it had not felt catastrophic.
Had she come home angry?
Had I misjudged something again?
The memory of her saying I don’t want to belong to someone resurfaced.
Had I made her feel cornered?
I pressed my palm briefly against the cool wood of the door. I could knock. I should knock.
Instead, I stood there in the dim hallway, uncharacteristically uncertain. I had dismantled corporations with less hesitation than I felt in this moment.
She was here. Safe. Under my roof. And yet the closed door felt like distance.
And I did not yet understand why.
I did not sleep well.
I lay awake longer than I would admit, listening for movement in the guest wing. I did not knock on her door. I told myself it was restraint. That she required space.
It did not feel like restraint. It felt like distance.
By morning, I resolved to channel the discomfort into something productive.
I took coffee to go. A brief nod to Geoffrey. A clipped exchange with Chandler confirming numbers one final time.
Then I drove to meet Alistair Whitaker. He received me in a glass-walled office that overlooked half of Columbus. Polished wood. Framed awards. The scent of old money and calculated civility.
“Raphael,” he greeted smoothly. “To what do I owe the urgency?”
“Opportunity,” I replied.
