POV Norah
The door through which Xander had vanished swung once, twice, then settled, and the silence he left behind pressed against my ribs until breathing felt like an act of defiance.
I didn’t move. If I moved, I might run. If I ran, I might break.
“Norah.”
His voice came from the doorway like a shadow stepping free of the wall. Chris.
Dark suit, open collar, eyes that burned with something I couldn’t name. He crossed the room without hesitation, like this table full of ghosts belonged to him.
“You saw it, didn’t you?” he said, stopping close enough that I could smell cedar and smoke on his jacket. “He’ll always run to her. He’ll always choose her over you.”
My hands tightened around the back of my chair until my knuckles went white. “This isn’t the time, Chris.”
“It’s exactly the time.” His mouth curved—too soft to be kind, too sharp to be safe. “When the mask slips, you look at the face underneath. You saw his.”
“I saw a man dragged by duty.” The words scraped my throat. “That doesn’t mean—”
“It means everything.” He lifted a hand, brushed it along my forearm, light as heat. “Come with me. Let’s get you out of here. You and that child—” his gaze dropped to my stomach, softened, then flared again— “you’d be everything to me.”
My heart lurched, ridiculous traitor. Certainty. That’s what he offered.
No contracts. No ghosts. No rooms full of people waiting for me to trip. Just… ‘yes’.
A ‘yes’ big enough to swallow me whole.
I looked past him, toward the head of the table where Xander’s grandmother sat like a judge carved in ice, toward the corner where Alaina’s perfume still clung to the air like a lie.
The room tilted and I steadied myself on the table.
“Chris,” I whispered, “please.”
“Please?” His smile was almost gentle. “Please… what? Take you away? Marry you? Raise your child like mine? All you have to do is say the word. I’ll make the noise stop.” He leaned closer, voice slipping into something intimate. “You know I will.”
He would. I felt it; he would bulldoze the world to make space for us.
For me. The offer curled around my ribs like a warm rope. For a moment—God help me—I let it hold.
But then memory rose: Xander’s voice, rough and unpolished, cutting through the room—’She is the woman I love’.
My name broken on his tongue. His hand shaking when it reached for his pocket. The way his eyes had found mine like there was no one else left on earth.
I flinched from Chris’s touch. “I shouldn’t go with you.”
His jaw ticked. “Because you’re waiting for him to come back?” His eyes flashed. “He won’t. Not for you. Not first. You’ll always be second in that man’s life, and you know it.”
“That isn’t fair…”
“It’s the only fair thing I’ve said all night.”
He glanced at the door, then back at me, voice smoothing like silk drawn over a blade.
“Come with me, Norah. I’ll put you in my car, drive you out of this mausoleum, and you can sleep without wondering whose footsteps are in your hallway.”
“Stop…” The word cracked, but it landed.
He studied me, and for a flicker his anger cooled to something like concern. “You’re shaking.”
“I’m pregnant,” I said, uselessly. “Everything shakes.”
“Then let me take care of you.” He laughed once, soft and disbelieving, like he couldn’t believe I needed convincing. “I’ll even talk to Grandmother. She likes me when I’m not lighting things on fire. I’ll make sure this family treats you with respect, with… with reverence. I’ll cut anyone who laughs tonight out of every deal I touch. Just say yes.”
“You can’t promise me peace by setting the city on fire.”
“Watch me.”
The room buzzed again—guests creeping back to gather coats, to gossip in new shapes. A partner’s wife glanced our way, whispered into a jeweled hand. I straightened, trying to reconstruct my spine.
“Chris,” I said carefully, “tonight is not about winning against your brother.”
He smiled, all teeth. “Everything has always been about winning against my brother.”
“And that’s why this isn’t right.” I forced a breath in. “You’re angry at him, not in love with me.”
His eyes softened, then hardened. “I am in love with you.”
I blinked. “You don’t know me…”
“I know enough.” His voice roughened. “I know you ran into traffic for a worthless phone. I know you make notes in the margin like you’re arguing with the text. I know you tuck your hair behind your ear when you’re lying and you didn’t touch a single glass of wine tonight because you wanted to be able to tell the truth if someone asked.”
He swallowed.
“I know you deserve better than a man who can’t choose you in a crisis.”
Something in me trembled that wasn’t fear. I held on to the chair harder.
“And I know,” he added, quieter, “that I would never leave you standing in a room like this.”
My vision blurred. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not? It’s true.”
“Because it’s easy to say when the fire isn’t touching you.”
He stepped in, the space between us shrinking to breath and static. “Then set me on fire, Norah. I won’t move.”
The chandelier hummed. Somewhere, a door closed.
I thought of Chris’s coffee invites, his easy laugh in a quiet café, the way safety had felt like sunlight for ten minutes at a time. I thought of the baby—ours, mine—curled small and stubborn in the dark, listening for the shape of the life I would build around it.
My throat burned. “You’re kind,” I said. “You’re brave and reckless and sometimes sweet in ways you shouldn’t be. But you’re not him.”
His smile stalled. “Don’t.”
“But you’re not him,” I repeated, the tremor in my voice vibrating through my ribs. “You never will be.”
For a second, the room stopped breathing. The hurt that flashed across his face wasn’t theatrical; it was clean and deep. He looked away, just once, like he’d been struck somewhere no one could see.
When he met my eyes again, the warmth had receded, leaving something colder behind.
“You think he loves you more because he bleeds prettier,” he said softly. “Because he makes grand speeches and drops to a knee in rooms full of gold. You think that adds up to loyalty?”
“I think…” I swallowed. “I think love without loyalty isn’t love. And I’m going to wait and see if he understands that.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Then I’ll learn to walk away.” I tried to smile and failed. “But not into you. Not like this. Not because I’m hurt.”
He exhaled a laugh that wasn’t a laugh. “God, you’re good.”
“I’m trying to be right,” I said, barely louder than the clink of distant crystal. “For me. For the baby.”
His gaze dipped to my stomach again, then climbed. The edge in his eyes sharpened, but so did the shine of something like determination.
He reached up and smoothed an invisible wrinkle from my sleeve, a gesture that felt like both goodbye and claim.
“You think I’m the storm,” he murmured. “But he is.”
“I know,” I said. “I fell in.”
He nodded once, slow, as if accepting a verdict he planned to appeal. Then he leaned in, his mouth close to my ear, breath warm and steady even as his words chilled.
“One day,” he whispered, a threat wrapped in velvet, “you’ll regret that answer.”