Elowen's POV
The screen glows in the darkness of my bedroom, Vesper's face pixelated by distance and poor connection.
Two hundred forty miles between us. Four hours of highway I cannot cross without raising questions I'm not prepared to answer.
The wedding is two weeks away, and every legal avenue we've explored has closed like doors slamming shut one after another.
"You look exhausted," I say, studying the shadows beneath her eyes through the video call. "The board meeting ran late?"
"The board meeting ran hostile."
She leans back in her desk chair, Manhattan glittering behind her through the office windows.
"Three hours of quarterly projections and succession planning while Grandmother watched me like a hawk waiting for weakness. I kept thinking about you instead of the revenue forecasts, which probably showed on my face more than I'd like to admit."
"Thinking about me during a hostile board meeting seems strategically unwise."
"Everything about you is strategically unwise, Elowen."
Her voice softens, and even through the grainy connection, I can see the shift in her expression—the walls lowering, the armor setting aside.
"How are you holding up? You sounded different when you texted earlier."
I pull my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around them like I can hold myself together through sheer physical compression.
The distance between us feels like something solid tonight, something with weight and edges that press against my ribs.
"I told my father I wasn't sure about the wedding."
The words emerge flat, hollowed out by hours of processing the conversation that followed.
"I thought honesty might accomplish what legal maneuvering couldn't."
Vesper's jaw tightens visibly.
"What did he say?"
"That my feelings were irrelevant. Kincaids honor their contracts."
I laugh, and the sound comes out bitter.
"He also reminded me that Mother and Iris depend on the trust income. If I refuse, it affects them too."
"He's using your sister against you."
"He's using everyone against me."
I shift closer to the screen, as if proximity to her image might substitute for proximity to her body.
"But you're the only person who's ever asked what I actually want."
The connection flickers, her face freezing for a heartbeat before resolving back into motion.
She's quiet for a long moment, and I watch her compose words she doesn't want to speak.
"Leander called me this afternoon," she says finally. "Before the board meeting."
My stomach tightens with instinctive dread.
"What did he want?"
"To talk about you, apparently."
Her voice carries an edge I've learned to recognize—jealousy wrapped in careful neutrality.
"He mentioned your video calls have been getting longer, that he feels like you're actually connecting now. He said he thinks he might genuinely like you, Elowen."
The information lands in my chest with uncomfortable weight.
Leander's warmth has been growing with each conversation we share, his nervous energy settling into something closer to real affection.
I've noticed it happening and chosen not to examine it too closely.
"He's kind," I manage. "Kinder than this situation deserves."
"He's falling for you." Vesper's composure cracks just enough to reveal the rawness beneath. "My brother is falling for my—"
She stops herself, but the unfinished sentence hangs between us like smoke.
"Just say it," I ask gently.
"The woman I love."
The confession comes out rough, almost angry.
"He's falling for the woman I love, and I have to watch it happen while pretending to be supportive."
The possessiveness in her voice sends warmth flooding through my chest despite everything.
I lean closer to the camera, letting her see the smile I cannot suppress.
"Careful, Vesper. I might think you're jealous."
"I'm beyond jealous."
Her eyes burn through the screen with an intensity that makes my breath catch.
"I'm furious and terrified and desperate, and none of those feelings are appropriate for a woman in my position, but I stopped caring about appropriate the moment I kissed you in that garden."
"I miss you."
The admission escapes before I can measure it.
"I miss you in ways that don't make sense given how recently I saw you. My body keeps expecting you to walk through doors you're not behind."
"I could drive up tonight."
The words tumble out quickly, impulsively—nothing like the calculated woman I've watched command boardrooms.
"I could be there by midnight."
"Vesper, you just survived a board meeting. You need sleep, not a highway."
"What I need is to stop talking to you through a screen when you're hurting."
Her voice drops, fierce with conviction.
"I need to hold you while we figure out how to survive the next two weeks."
The connection flickers again, and for one terrible moment I think we've lost the call entirely.
Then her face resolves back into focus, and the determination in her expression tells me she's already made her decision.
"Leave the back door unlocked," she says.
The call ends.
I wait in my childhood bedroom because there's nowhere else to go.
At eleven fifty-eight, the floorboards creak in the hallway.
Vesper slips through my door still wearing her board meeting armor—rumpled blazer, hair escaping its arrangement, exhaustion carved into every line of her body.
She surveys the room with raised eyebrows, taking in the pink wallpaper, the antique vanity, the childhood photographs arranged on every surface.
"I expected something more dramatic from the woman who terrorized my filing systems for four years," she says dryly. "This looks like a museum exhibit for well-bred daughters."
"It is a museum exhibit."
I rise from the bed to meet her.
"My father hasn't changed anything since I was seventeen. I think he believes the old Elowen is still in here somewhere, waiting to emerge and fulfill her obligations like a good Kincaid daughter."
Vesper crosses the room and cups my face in her hands with desperate tenderness.
Her palms are warm against my cheeks, her thumbs tracing the line of my jaw.
"I love you," I whisper.
"I know." She pulls me closer. "I drove four hours to make sure you knew it back."
When she kisses me, it feels nothing like our collisions before—not the desperate hunger of the fitting room, not the stolen urgency of the garden.
This kiss unfolds like a secret being shared, her lips moving against mine with patient intention, each brush and press a word in a language we're still learning together.
She tastes like highway coffee and midnight air, and I feel myself dissolving into her arms like I've been waiting my whole life to stop being solid.
Her fingers thread through my hair while my hands find the lapels of her blazer, pulling her closer until there's no space left between us.
The debutante portraits watch from the dresser, silent witnesses to everything the old Elowen was never supposed to become.
When we finally separate, foreheads touching, breath mingling in the narrow space between us, the weight of reality settles back onto my shoulders.
"We have two weeks," I whisper. "What are we going to do?"
Vesper's arms tighten around me. I feel her mind racing—options calculated and discarded, strategies assembled and dismantled.
Every path she's considering ends in some form of destruction.
She doesn't answer.