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He sat mostly sideways, legs thrown over the chair’s rolled arm, head dropped back on the opposite side, and his phone held above his face as he texted. A laptop sat open on the table beside him, video playing.

At this range, Molly easily identified Keira Knightley’s Elizabeth Bennet drifting from the speakers, though Elliot didn’t seem especially interested.

Molly sputtered a half laugh at the absurdity she’d just discovered.

He looked up. His brows drew together, then lifted.

She immediately flushed. She’d been judging, sure, but she hadn’t intended to be caught judging so openly.

His eyes drifted from her face to her left hand, where she was still holding a half-eaten apple. He was breaking the rules, but she was too. If possible, his brows lifted even higher, lips quirking.

Hastily, ridiculously, Molly tucked her hand behind her back, apple obscured.

Elliot snorted, then tilted his head a minuscule amount, indicating the seat opposite his laptop. His brows remained lifted in what almost felt like a challenge. Not quite an invitation to join him, but not a demand that she leave either.

“The 1995 miniseries is better,” she said, finally finding her voice. “And use some headphones.”

She whirled and returned to her own seat before he could respond. But a few seconds later, the noise cut off.

Chapter 4

Elliot Reyes

Molly was on a mission.

Following what Alannah had started referring to as the “disaster dinner,” Bishop seemed to have decided that he had to be even more careful around her. Every cautious glance and guarded question prickled at Molly’s nerves. He’d gone stoic to the point of lifelessness, and it was slowly driving her mad. Maybe worse, when he wasn’t stoic, he was often gone, obviously avoiding her by spending his evenings elsewhere.

So, after a week of walking on eggshells, Molly opted for directness. She’d never been especially deft at subtlety. And that fact was never more apparent than when trying to quietly convince Aster Bishop that she could handle more, that he could be less careful, that the coldness in his posture had started to send unpleasant shivers down her spine.

Her mission began with coffee. Every morning since her stroke, without fail, Bishop woke before her and had coffee ready and waiting whenever she emerged from the bedroom. Her logic, stretched as it may have been, was that if she began the day with a gesture, making his coffee instead, buttering him up with some toast—a breakfast-themed olive branch—he might unclench.

She would be direct. To the point. And she would simply ask that he try behaving like a semi-normal person for the sake of her sanity.

Pleased with her plan, Molly scooped Pawntès up and opened the bedroom door as quietly as possible. Shadows greeted her in the hallway; she’d risen before the sun. She crept carefully on the worn floors, wary of boards that creaked.

Emerging from the hallway, she found coffee already brewing and Bishop sitting on the blue brocade monstrosity that currently served as his bed. The nearby lamp cast a soft light over the room. His laptop sat open on one of the two adjacent coffee tables wedged into the tight space, and several papers were scattered across the other.

“Honestly, do you even sleep?” Molly grumbled, shoulders dropping as her mission dissolved. She let Pawntès escape her arms, and he immediately bounded over to Bishop’s laptop, perching carelessly atop it and demanding attention.

“Not well,” he said, giving Pawntès a few scratches.

Bishop moved to stand, but Molly stopped him. “You made it. I can at least pour my own cup.”

She prepared her coffee, snagged a treat for Pawntès, and grabbed a couple ibuprofen before returning to the living room.

Despite the distance Bishop insisted on maintaining, it struck her how normal a morning with him felt, how very much like a home. She looked at him, already reabsorbed with the work in front of him. The apprehension Molly once recalled in his presence was noticeably softened, creating space for something else. If he’d stop tiptoeing around her every second, she might not even mind being in his company.

Her gaze caught on his hands as he typed. It hit her suddenly, and with an almost absurd hilarity, that those hands had touched her. She’d never spared much thought over a man’s hands before, but staring at Bishop’s now, she couldn’t help but notice how steady, how precise, how confident his movements were. The terminal end of that thought process held far too much deadly potential for this hour of the morning.

Desperately switching her focus to his face offered no relief, because her eyes landed on his mouth. Lips that obviously had kissed her. Probably in a great many places. She’d only ever considered Bishop’s mouth as good for hurling insults, she’d never considered it might have other, much more benevolent applications.

Molly averted her eyes from him entirely, looking to his screen.

“Is that the Laburnum logo?” she asked, grateful for anything else to focus on.

He stilled. “It is.”

“What is all that, if you don’t mind my asking?” She tried a polite tone, something she hoped wouldn’t send him further shuttering himself away.