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“She really was.” I looked down at the necklace. “She had a way of making ordinary things feel important.”

His hand came to my jaw, gently lifting my face toward his. He studied me for a moment before his palm settled against my cheek. My face felt impossibly small in his hand.

“Thank you, Emilia, for a wonderful evening.”

I let myself lean into his touch. Only slightly. Enough that I knew he felt it.

“Good night, Emilia.”

“Good night, Alexander.” He waited at my door until I made my way inside.

* * *

Alexander

The penthouse was quiet.

Winston looked up from his bed beside the fireplace as I came in, acknowledging me with the smallest lift of his head before settling again. I removed my coat, poured myself a measure of whisky, and stood at the window.

This apartment was designed for solitude. I had always considered that one of its virtues. Tonight, for the first time in many years, it felt unnecessarily large.

I looked toward the opera house beyond the windows. I imagined Emilia there without meaning to. Walking through the doors, stopping beside the roses in the lobby, lingering at the threshold longer than necessary. I was watching Emilia fall in love with Blackwood Hall.

She knew I was the man who held her pulse to my lips. I had given her the words rain beneath glass at the masquerade and hoped she would recognize them. Tonight, she had finally let me know that she had. What she did not know was that I had been waiting for her long before she stepped beneath those chandeliers. I was not ready to reveal that secret yet.

The study beyond the sitting room was still lit. I crossed to the desk and opened the top drawer before I had consciously decided to. The collaboration with Julian Mercer had been officially suspended. The document ordering it lay where I had left it. Signed in my own hand. I had built Blackwood Hall so that decisions about someone’s work would not be made in rooms where they had no voice. I had done exactly that. Then I had taken her to dinner.

Soon, she would learn about the suspension. What she would not know was that the decision had been mine.

I thought of her tonight. The ease in her smile. The way she had leaned into my hand at the door. The invitation had said we would discuss Aurora’s future at Blackwood. We never broached the topic. That was by design. I wanted one evening untouched by what I had already done.

Chapter 13

Emilia

I needed a moment to myself.

I kicked off my shoes as soon as I closed the door behind me. I took a warm shower, letting the steam and lavender settle around me while I collected my thoughts. Then I settled on the couch in my favorite cozy pajamas with a cup of tea, the electric fireplace the only source of light, and called Charlotte. She answered on the first ring.

“Tell me everything,” she said.

“I don’t know where to start.”

“Start from the beginning.”

“He ordered the fish.”

We both laughed.

“And then what happened?” Charlotte asked.

“I confirmed he was the masked man.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone. “Alexander was the masked man?”

“Yes.”

“You knew?”