"You came."
Rhys rises from a booth tucked into the darkest corner of Bellini's, candlelight catching the surprise in his blue-green eyes.
The restaurant is all exposed brick and velvet shadows, the kind of place where secrets come to breathe.
"I came for answers."
I slide into the seat across from him, keeping my voice steady even as my pulse stutters.
"Tessa's father's firm has been losing clients. Rowena made very specific threats, and I need to know what your family is planning."
"Straight to business." He settles back, eyes traveling over me with lazy appreciation that makes my skin prickle. "And here I thought you'd dressed up just for me."
"Don't flatter yourself."
"Too late. I've been flattering myself since you texted back."
He signals the waiter, orders wine without consulting the menu, then turns that infuriating half-smile on me.
"You know, if you wanted information about the family's legal maneuvers, you could have asked Caspian. He's supposedly the one fighting for you now."
I don't have an answer for that.
The silence stretches, and I find myself watching his face in the candlelight. The way shadows catch the hollow beneath his cheekbones. The slight asymmetry of his mouth when he's not performing. His lips part to take a sip of water, and suddenly I'm back in that moonlit alcove, those same lips trailing down my neck while I arched into him believing—
How did I mistake him for Caspian?
The question burns.
I study the angle of his jaw, the way his hair falls across his forehead, searching for the differences I should have noticed.
They're there now, obvious in unforgiving light.
The nose is slightly longer. The eyebrows are less severe. Small details that should have screamed wrong but instead whispered finally.
"You're staring." His voice cuts through my spiral, sharp enough to draw blood. "Either you're memorizing my face for a police sketch, or you're still trying to figure out how you mistook me for your husband."
My cheeks burn.
"Neither. I was thinking about how much I don't trust you."
"Fair enough."
He slides out of his seat and into the booth beside me before I can protest, close enough that his thigh presses against mine.
"Better angle for conversation."
The wine arrives before I can protest.
He pours two glasses, the deep red catching light like liquid garnets.
"Caspian mentioned you two have a complicated history, but he never explained what that meant."
"Of course he didn't."
Rhys takes a long sip, and something shifts in his expression. The charm dims, replaced by something rawer.
"I was eighteen when Victor decided I was too much of a liability to keep around. My mother had just died, and I was making noise about investigating how the family had treated her, asking questions they didn't want answered."
"What kind of questions?"
"The kind that get inconvenient nephews shipped off to boarding school in Zurich." He takes a long sip. "My mother was Victor's younger sister. She married a musician—scandalous, I know, a man who made people feel things for a living—and they cut her off completely. We lived in a two-bedroom apartment in Queens while her brother built his empire across the river."
"That sounds lonely."
"She was the happiest person I've ever known. Laughed every single day, right up until the cancer decided otherwise." His jaw tightens, and he stares into his glass. "When she was dying, I tried to come home. Called every number I had. They wouldn't authorize the trust payment for my flight."
"Rhys..."
"I watched her funeral on a livestream from a hotel room in Zurich. Six-inch screen, sixteen hours of footage, completely alone." He attempts a laugh that doesn't land. "The hotel had excellent room service, though. Really top-notch strudel. Nothing says grieving like stress-eating Austrian pastry while your mother gets lowered into the ground an ocean away."
The joke falls flat between us, and something in his expression cracks.
"I'm so sorry." The words come out soft, genuine. "That's monstrous. No one should have to go through that alone."
He blinks at me, genuinely startled.
"You mean that."
"Of course I mean it."
"People don't usually..." He stops, swallows. "They don't usually say sorry like they actually feel it. It's just something people say."
"I'm not people."
A surprised laugh escapes him—real this time.
"No, firefly. You're definitely not."
Before I can think, my hand covers his. His fingers are warm, trembling slightly, and when they interlace with mine, electricity skitters up my arm.
"Victor and Rowena treated me the way they treated you at that restaurant," he says quietly. "Like we didn't belong. Like our presence was an inconvenience. But we do belong somewhere, Elara. Together."
His free hand slides onto my thigh.
The heat of his palm burns through thin fabric, and my breath catches. Every nerve ending lights up, muscle memory flooding back—his hands learning my body, his mouth whispering against my skin.
I should stop him. I'm about to speak when he withdraws, settling back with a sad smile.
"I'm sorry. That was too much."
I'm breathless, caught between relief and something dangerously close to disappointment.
After dinner, he walks me to my car in the parking garage, his hand hovering at the small of my back without quite touching.
"I'm going to fight for you." He stops beside my door, and the overhead light casts his face in sharp relief. "I need you to know that. Whatever happens, I'm not walking away."
My heart hammers against my ribs.
He's going to kiss me.
The certainty floods through me as he steps closer, as his hand rises toward my face, as the space between us shrinks to nothing.
Then he tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, presses his lips to my forehead, and steps back.
"Goodnight, Elara."
He walks away without looking back.
I stand frozen, keys clutched in trembling fingers, and the shock that rolls through me has nothing to do with his restraint.
I wanted him to kiss me.
The realization lands like a grenade.
My phone rings through the car speakers ten minutes into the drive home, shattering my spiral.
"Ms. Marlowe? This is Gerald Young, your landlord. Someone came by today asking questions about your lease." He pauses. "Is there something I should know? Are you in some kind of trouble?"
"No. Everything's fine. Thank you for letting me know."
I hang up and grip the steering wheel until my knuckles go white.
Someone is watching me.