She pulled her arm back at once, breathing hard, furious to the point of looking untouchable and flushed in a way that ruined the lie.
“Are you insane?” she snapped.
“Probably.”
“This is not normal.”
“No,” I said, stepping closer. “Nothing about you has ever made me normal.”
Her throat moved, and she hated that I noticed. The hallway was empty now, silent around every breath between us, and the look in her eyes told me she understood exactly why being alone with me was dangerous.
Edwina
It was not right, and still, for a few moments, neither of us spoke. The silence between us carried too much to be harmless, all the words we had swallowed, all the memories pressing beneath the present until the air felt harder to breathe. His gaze stayed on me with the same force that had once undone every defense I owned, and the longer I stood beneath it, the harder it became to hold on to the composure I had spent years building.
Then he moved, slower than I expected, with a restraint that made the space between us feel even more dangerous. Hishand lifted, and for a second I thought he might stop himself before the moment crossed into something neither of us could take back. He didn’t. The back of his knuckles brushed along my cheek, soft and almost uncertain, as if he were touching a memory he knew too well and no longer knew whether he had the right to reach for. The warmth of his skin sent a tremor through me. I should have stepped away. I knew that with every rational part of myself, knew I needed distance before the control I had rebuilt slipped through my fingers again. Still, my body stayed where it was, caught between anger and memory, between the woman I had become and the girl who had once leaned into his touch without fear.
His fingers followed the curve of my cheek before drifting toward a loose strand of hair near my temple. He twisted the soft wave between them in a gesture so familiar it hurt, and the years between us seemed to fold in on themselves. The hallway around us fell quiet, the world beyond the alcove fading until all I could feel was his hand near my face and the dangerous memory of what his touch had once meant to me.
My eyes closed before I could stop them. I had not meant to give him that reaction, yet my body answered the warmth of his touch before my mind could pull me back. For one brief moment, I let myself feel it, the familiarity of his hand near my face, the tenderness that had once made me believe there was no safer place than the space between us.
Then reality returned.
I opened my eyes, and the way he was looking at me made my chest tighten. There was too much memory in his gaze, too much of everything we had failed to leave behind. I swallowed, trying to find something solid inside myself before his name slipped from my mouth.
“Hayden…”
It came out barely above a whisper. The strand of hair fell from his fingers as our eyes met again, and the fragile moment between us shifted into something I no longer knew how to control. I searched his face, hating the part of me that must have looked close to pleading.
“What, Edwina?” he asked.
The sound of my name in his voice tightened something in my chest. I forced myself to step back, only enough to put a thin layer of distance between us, though even that felt fragile.
“You shouldn’t be doing this,” I said, trying to hold my voice together while the ache beneath it refused to leave. “You’re probably married now.”
The words came out sharper than I meant them to, carried by the memory of that café, of the moment everything I believed about us had fallen apart.
“And I’m not going to make the same mistake twice.”
His brows drew together.
“What mistake?”
The anger I had spent years swallowing finally tore loose. “This,” I said, gesturing between us. “This sick, twisted thing you keep trying to drag me back into.”
His gaze stayed on mine. “You’re talking in riddles.”
“No,” I snapped. “I’m talking about the reality you keep pretending doesn’t exist.”
The silence between us tightened before the words I had carried for years came out with all the force I had tried to bury. “I will not be the other woman in whatever fucked-up relationship you still have with your fiancée.”
The wordfiancéelanded between us, and I watched him, waiting for guilt, for shame, for one crack in that controlled face that would prove I had not spent years hating him for nothing. Instead, he looked confused, and that made me angrier.
“You think I’m married?” he asked.
“I don’t know what the hell you are,” I snapped. “And I don’t care anymore.”
My hands curled at my sides. “Just leave.”
