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The Blackwood Spa occupied the western wing, just beyond the Fellows’ Dining Room. Its spaces were filled with warm stone, pale wood, and sunlight filtering through floor-to-ceiling windows. Somewhere beyond the reception area, water flowed softly over polished slate while the faint scent of lavender and eucalyptus lingered in the air. It felt less like a spa and more like another thoughtfully designed corner of Blackwood.

A therapist greeted me and led me through a series of hushed rooms where conversation felt unnecessary. Soft music blended with the sound of moving water. For the next two hours, I surrendered completely to stillness.

Later, wrapped in a robe with a cup of jasmine tea warming my hands, I settled into a chair overlooking the gardens. Residents wandered the paths below. I simply sat there, content to watch the day unfold.

* * *

By early evening it was time to get ready.

I reached for the floor-length deep plum silk gown from the wardrobe. The dress skimmed my frame, its simplicity allowing the richness of the color to speak for itself. I swept my hair up, leaving a few loose strands to frame my face, and slipped into nude satin heels before fastening Sofia’s necklace and adding the gold earrings Charlotte had once insisted completed the set.

I gathered my evening bag, switched off the bedroom lamp, and stepped into the sitting room just as a gentle knock sounded at the door.

Alexander was precisely on time. His eyes met mine, then traveled slowly over me with an openness I had never seen before. The quiet appreciation in his expression was so complete that I held my breath before he spoke.

“You are…” He paused. “Gorgeous.”

Something about hearing that word from him made it sound entirely different from every compliment I had ever received.

“Thank you.”

He stepped toward me until there was nothing between us at all, one hand at my waist, and looked at me. The admiration in his eyes was enough to undo me before he even kissed me. Then he did.

There was an unmistakable hunger in it. He gathered me against him with a certainty that made my heart race, the kiss deepening until the rest of the world disappeared around us.

My hands found him instinctively, one resting against his chest while the other slipped around the back of his neck. I felt him smile briefly against my lips before kissing me again. When he finally drew back, we remained close. His forehead rested lightly against mine while his thumb traced a slow path along my cheek.

“The last few hours have felt remarkably like an eternity,” he said quietly.

Warmth spread through me so quickly it stole every word I might have said. I drew him back for another kiss instead. He gripped my hips and pulled me flush against him, and I felt him hard against me. Feeling him want me, right here, right now, sent a pulse of heat low through me and I wanted nothing more than to forget the dinner entirely and pull him into my bedroom.

He drew back with effort, his breath unsteady. I understood that leaving was costing him exactly as much as it was costing me.

“If we don’t leave now,” he said, “we’re not going to.”

“Later, then,” I said against his mouth. “But I won’t be thinking about anything else all night.”

His eyes darkened. I sensed he might abandon the dinner entirely. Then he exhaled, straightened Sofia’s necklace where it had shifted, and stepped back with the air of a man exercising considerable discipline.

“Neither will I.” He offered me his arm and I took it.

* * *

Blackwood Hall’s formal dining room occupied the western end of the ground floor, near the spa.

I had never fully appreciated its scale until that evening. Candlelight softened the Gilded Age grandeur without diminishing it, leaving the carved ceiling and towering windows to speak for themselves. Round tables dressed in white linen filled the room, each arranged with the effortless confidence of a place that had hosted countless memorable evenings.

Conversations continued uninterrupted as we entered. Then, almost imperceptibly, they shifted. It wasn’t silence. Blackwood Hall was too well-mannered for that. It was simply the subtle awareness that accompanies an unexpected change in something long familiar. Alexander Blackwood had crossed this room alone for years. Tonight, someone crossed it beside him.

Something between us had changed, and I could feel it in his affection. His hand found the small of my back as we moved through the room in a way he no longer bothered to disguise how often his attention returned to me.

Whenever the talk turned to Aurora, Alexander redirected it with effortless grace, handing each question to the scientist beside him rather than answering for her.

That was another way he cared for the people who mattered to him. He made room. In conversations. In the lives of the people he let close.

One of the donors leaned over his wine. “I’ll admit I’m out of my depth, Dr. Rossi, but someone told me Aurora is the great successor to that program the Foundation ran years ago. Helix, was it? The one that was going to change everything before it quietly went away.”

I felt Alexander go still beside me. “Aurora is its own program,” he said, before I could answer. His tone was perfectly pleasant. It did not invite a follow-up. “Dr. Rossi built it from the ground up.”