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Charlotte’s smile did not change. “Did you?”

“I’m not sure.”

Something in her expression suggested that answer interested her. She offered nothing more.

The second dance was as unexpected as the first. Some time later, I had moved toward one of the side rooms, a candlelit space furnished with small tables and chairs for those who preferred conversation to dancing. I spent a pleasant twenty minutes in discussion with Evelyn Hart about a proposed spring production and was considering a second glass of champagne.

When I returned to the main hall, he was standing near the center of the room, as though the evening itself had arranged for our paths to cross again. He looked at me. I stopped.

He extended his hand. “Again?”

I accepted before I had fully decided to. Curiosity was certainly part of it, but not all of it. There was something about this evening: the music, the candlelight, the way it felt moving around the room with him. It made the gesture feel less like an invitation and more like a continuation of what had already begun.

The orchestra settled into something quieter and more deliberate. We moved without speaking. I became aware of him in ways I hadn’t during the first dance. His height. The confidence with which he moved. How the distance between us had narrowed. I could feel the whole warm length of him where we touched. His chest against my palm, the strength of the arm at my back, the hand that drew me in until nothing remained between us.

When his hand shifted lightly against my spine, a slow breath escaped me before I realized I had been holding it. It had been a long time since another person’s touch had felt like something I wanted to lean into rather than shift away from.

It was not merely attraction, though that would have been explanation enough. It felt strangely like recognition, as though some part of me had reached a conclusion my mind was not yet prepared to make.

Alexander crossed my mind again. With every moment, the possibility felt less like speculation.

The music came to an end, and he released me slowly. Neither of us moved at first. Then the room seemed to return around us.

I needed air.

The balcony doors stood open on the second level. I had noticed them earlier in the evening, the night air visible through the glass and the darkness stretching beyond it. I made my way toward them.

The balcony was the full width of the upper gallery and overlooked the gardens, their stone pathways illuminated against dark greenery. In the distance, Manhattan stretched across the horizon, all glass and cold light. Rain fell just beyond the stone overhang, never reaching where I stood. The music behind me drifted through the open doors, faint beneath the sound of the rain.

I placed my hands against the cool railing. I had been standing there for a few minutes when I heard footsteps approach. I knew, without looking, who they belonged to. He came to stand beside me, leaving a careful distance between us.

“It’s beautiful,” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

“I’m not sure who you are,” I said.

“No,” he agreed.

“That should probably bother me, but it doesn’t.”

He turned his head toward me. “Why not?”

I thought about the question honestly. “Because I don’t feel afraid. And because you somehow knew about rain beneath glass.”

He paused. “I could explain it, but it wouldn’t be quick. And I don’t think I could do it well.”

“Then don’t,” I said. “Not tonight.”

The music changed, the new melody somehow perfect for the silence between us.

He glanced toward my hand on the railing. “May I?”

I nodded. He reached for my hand and gently drew it toward him. I turned, watching as he slipped the glove from my fingers. The night air felt cool against my skin. He raised my hand slowly toward his mouth, his eyes on mine. I had every opportunity to pull away, but it felt impossible. Only when my hand was nearly to his lips did he lower his gaze.

He placed the kiss against the inside of my wrist, precisely where my pulse beat. I could not have hidden it if I tried. My breath went shallow. His lips lingered against my skin. For those few seconds, the world seemed to fall still around us even as everything inside me accelerated.

When he lifted his head, he did not immediately release my hand. Instead, he held it gently between his palms. He was weighing a decision, and I wanted him to make it. I wanted him to decide toward me. Then he drew the glove back over my fingers and stepped closer.