Chapter 3: A Lily and a Threat

By the next morning, Serena had convinced herself that the previous night had been a humiliation she would simply outlive. That was what she told herself while dressing for work. That was what she told herself while checking her reflection in the mirror, making sure her face looked normal, her eyes clear, her hair pinned neatly back. That was what she told herself when she opened her apartment door and found a single white flower lying on the mat.

Her stomach dropped so hard she almost stepped back into the hallway. There was no note. Just the flower. A lily, clean and pale and wrong. Serena stared at it for a long time before picking it up between two fingers as if it might stain her. Her hand was shaking. She hated that most of all. The hallway was empty. Quiet. No footsteps. No shadow at the end of the corridor. Nothing to prove that anyone had been there. Only the flower, placed with enough care to feel intentional, enough quiet to feel intimate.

Her phone buzzed in her bag. She nearly dropped the flower trying to get to it. A number she didn’t know. She answered without meaning to. “Hello?”

A pause. Then a man’s voice, roughened by static, almost amused. “You left before I could thank you for the hospitality.”

Serena’s blood turned cold. Her grip tightened around the phone. “Who is this?”

Silence. Then a soft exhale that made her skin crawl. “Did you sleep well, Serena?”

The voice was familiar in a way that made her stomach twist. Too familiar. The ex. Her entire body went rigid. The hallway seemed to narrow, the air turning thin and dry in her lungs. Her throat worked once before she managed to speak. “Leave me alone.”

A low chuckle. “You always used to say that when you wanted me to stay.” Her vision flashed hot at the edges. No. Not now. “I’m calling the police.”

“You already did,” he said mildly. “Nothing happened.” Her fingers tightened so hard around the phone it hurt. “I’m not afraid of you.”

Another pause. Then, softer: “You should be.” The line went dead.

Serena stood frozen in her doorway with the flower in one hand and the phone in the other, her pulse roaring in her ears. Then another voice cut through the silence behind her. “You should put that down.”

She spun around. Adrian stood at the other end of the hall, black coat open, hands empty, expression unreadable. He looked like he had stepped out of the storm itself. The sight of him jolted her so sharply she nearly forgot to breathe. “How long have you been there?” she demanded.

His eyes moved to the flower in her hand. “Long enough.” She stared at him. “You were listening?”

“I was arriving.”

“That is not the same thing.”

“No,” he said calmly. “It isn’t.” He came closer, but stopped a careful distance away when he saw her posture change. He noticed everything. The tension in her shoulders, the way she held the flower as if it might burn her, the slight sheen of panic in her eyes. “What happened?” he asked.

Serena let out a breath that trembled despite her best efforts. “He called.”

Adrian’s face did not change, but the air around him seemed to harden. “What did he say?”

She looked down at the lily. “Enough.”

His gaze followed hers, then lifted back to her face with an intensity that made her skin prickle. “He left that?”

“Yes.”

“Did he touch the door?”

“I don’t know.”

“You would know.”

That simple answer unsettled her more than she wanted to admit. Adrian moved only after a brief pause, crossing the hallway to examine the floor by her apartment door. He crouched, scanned the lock, the frame, the threshold. He looked almost unnervingly at home in the role of man who found danger where other people saw only ordinary walls.

“You need to stop opening the door alone,” he said.

Serena’s lips parted in disbelief. “That’s your advice?”

“It’s a start.”

“That sounds more like an order.”

“It is.”

She glared at him. “You’re not my boss.”

“No.” He straightened slowly and looked at her. “But I’m the one here.”

That should not have made her chest feel tight. It did. She hated that he had appeared again so quickly, as if he’d known she’d be in danger before she did. Hated even more that part of her was relieved to see him.

Adrian’s gaze stayed on her face. “Did you tell anyone about the call?”

“No.”

“Good.”

She frowned. “Good?”

“It means there’s still time to contain this.”

Serena’s jaw tightened. “Contain this?”

He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he looked past her into the apartment, as if checking for signs of intrusion. “Go inside,” he said.

She crossed her arms. “Make me.”

He looked at her for a long second, and there it was again — that quiet, relentless thing in him that made her feel like she was standing at the edge of a cliff and he was the only one who knew how to keep her from falling or push her over. “Serena,” he said, warning in his voice now.

The use of her name made her go still. She hated how effective it was. Adrian noticed that too. His expression changed by the smallest degree, and for the first time she saw not just the FBI agent, but the man underneath him — the one capable of staring at a woman as if she were already taking root in his life. She should have been disturbed. Instead her pulse kicked harder.

He stepped closer until she could feel the heat of him in the hall. “I’m going to ask you something,” he said quietly.

Her throat tightened. “That sounds ominous.”

“It is.”

Serena searched his face for whatever game he was playing and found none. “Have you seen him in person?” he asked.

Her mouth went dry. Her answer should have been immediate. It wasn’t. Because the truth was complicated in the way trauma always was. She had seen him once, maybe twice, at a distance. Enough to know the shape of him. Enough to know he had not stopped watching. Enough to know her body had recognized danger before her mind allowed it in.

Adrian saw the hesitation. That made his jaw tighten almost imperceptibly. “You have,” he said.

Serena looked away. “Not recently.”

The silence after that was thick and unpleasant. When she finally looked back, Adrian’s eyes were fixed on her with a dangerous sort of focus. “Then this is farther along than I thought.”

Her chest tightened. “What does that mean?”

“It means he’s not trying to scare you anymore.”

The lily in her hand suddenly felt too small, too innocent. Adrian’s voice stayed level. “He’s trying to remind you that he can reach you.”

A shiver ran through her. She swallowed it down and lifted her chin. “Then why are you really here?”

He did not answer right away. The hallway had gone very quiet around them. The kind of quiet that made every breath noticeable. His gaze stayed on her for one long beat too many. Then: “Because I think you’re in more danger than you realize.”

The words should have made her more afraid. Instead they made her think of the night before. Of the couch. The blanket. The fact that he had carried her from one place to another and not once treated her collapse like weakness. He was dangerous, yes. But danger was not the only thing about him.

Serena’s fingers loosened around the flower. “What do you want me to do?” she asked.

Adrian’s gaze dropped briefly to her mouth, then returned to her eyes so quickly she almost missed it. “Let me in,” he said.

The request should have sounded simple. It didn’t. It landed too deep, too fast, like an answer to a question she had not yet asked herself. Serena stood very still. Then, against all better sense, she unlocked her apartment door and stepped aside.

Adrian entered as if he had expected she would eventually make room for him. And maybe, to Serena’s growing alarm, he had.

Adrian did not touch anything inside Serena’s apartment unless absolutely necessary. That, more than anything, unsettled her. Most men like him would have come in acting entitled to the space, opening drawers, checking corners, making a performance of control. Adrian moved differently. He looked around with the same careful attention he gave people, cataloging without invading, watching without pretending not to. It made him harder to hate. And she hated that too.

“You live alone,” he said.

Serena leaned against the edge of the kitchen counter. “Observant.”

He glanced toward her. “You like that phrase.”

“It saves time.”

A faint shadow of amusement touched his face and vanished. “You keep the apartment too neat.”

Serena crossed her arms. “Is that a criticism?”

“No.”

“Then what is it?”

“A sign you don’t let people stay.”

That was too close. Her spine stiffened. “You’re not here to profile me.”

“I’m here to understand your routines.”

“Same thing.”

“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”

He had already been to every window, every door, every blind corner in her apartment. He checked them with a professional precision that made her think of locks, exits, dead zones. It should have made her feel safer. It mostly made her aware of how much he knew how to do.

The silence stretched. Then he turned toward her. “Show me the security logs.”

Serena blinked. “You mean the cameras?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t think you wanted me to feel paranoid.”

His gaze stayed flat. “You already are.”

She gave him a look and went to her laptop. It irritated her how quickly she complied. It irritated her more that he didn’t seem surprised. While the footage loaded, she caught him watching her from across the room. Not openly. Not in a way that could be called rude. But enough that every time she glanced up, he was looking somewhere in her direction as if he had no interest in hiding the fact that she occupied his attention. That was new. Unsettling. And, if she was honest, a little intoxicating. She pushed the thought away before it could settle.

The footage opened on the screen. Hallway. Front door. Elevator. A grainy still of the lobby entrance. Serena clicked through the timestamps with growing unease. At first, nothing. Then: a man standing too long by the building entrance. Then: a shadow near the stairwell. Then: a figure passing the reception desk with his hood up and his head turned away. Serena’s stomach tightened. She had seen all of this before and not let herself understand it.

Adrian stepped closer, his shoulder almost brushing hers. She went very still. He did not touch her. Did not even acknowledge the fact that the space had narrowed between them. He only said, “Pause there.”

She obeyed before she could stop herself. He studied the frame in silence. “Do you know him?”

Serena looked at the image, then away. “No.”

“Look again.”

“I said no.”

His gaze shifted to her then, sharp and steady. “Serena.”

She hated that he could make her feel cornered without raising his voice. The image on the screen blurred slightly in her vision. The hood. The build. The posture. Not enough. Too much. “I don’t know,” she said carefully.

Adrian’s expression hardened by a fraction. “That’s not the same answer.”

“It’s the only one I have.”

He absorbed that in silence, then stepped back. “Did you ever date someone who became controlling?” he asked.

Serena froze. Her fingers tightened around the edge of the desk. “That’s none of your business.”

“It is if he’s your stalker.”

Her throat tightened. That question had come too close to the center of something she had spent years trying not to look at directly. The ex had never been a simple ex. He had been a slow invasion, wrapped in charm and concern and the kind of attention that pretended to be devotion until it became possession. Serena hated how quickly the memory surfaced.

Adrian saw the change in her face immediately. That alone made her want to step away from him. But she stayed where she was. “Did you?” he asked again, quieter this time.

Serena looked at the screen. At the paused image of the lobby. At the blurred shape in the frame. “Yes,” she said. The word seemed to cost her.

Adrian’s jaw tightened. “Was it him?”

She didn’t answer. That was answer enough. A long silence followed. When she finally looked up, Adrian’s expression had gone still in a way that suggested he was restraining something sharper than either of those things. “Then this is farther along than I thought.”

Her chest tightened. “What does that mean?”

“It means he’s not trying to scare you anymore.”

The lily in her hand suddenly felt too small, too innocent. Adrian’s voice stayed level. “He’s trying to remind you that he can reach you.”

A shiver ran through her. She swallowed it down and lifted her chin. “Then why are you really here?”

He did not answer right away. The hallway had gone very quiet around them. The kind of quiet that made every breath noticeable. His gaze stayed on her for one long beat too many. Then: “Because I think you’re in more danger than you realize.”

The words should have made her more afraid. Instead they made her think of the night before. Of the couch. The blanket. The fact that he had carried her from one place to another and not once treated her collapse like weakness. He was dangerous, yes. But danger was not the only thing about him.

Serena’s fingers loosened around the flower. “What do you want me to do?” she asked.

Adrian’s gaze dropped briefly to her mouth, then returned to her eyes so quickly she almost missed it. “Let me in,” he said.

The request should have sounded simple. It didn’t. It landed too deep, too fast, like an answer to a question she had not yet asked herself. Serena stood very still. Then, against all better sense, she unlocked her apartment door and stepped aside.

Adrian entered as if he had expected she would eventually make room for him. And maybe, to Serena’s growing alarm, he had.

The storm did not ease. It only shifted, dragging its nails across the windows of Serena’s apartment and making the glass shudder every time thunder rolled across the sky. She had tried the usual things first. The lamp on. The curtains closed. A cup of tea she hadn’t touched. Music she couldn’t focus on. Breathing exercises that felt useless once the rain got loud enough to turn memory into something physical.

Adrian had not left. He had stayed because she had gone very quiet after the parking lot, because her hands had started trembling once she was inside again, because he had looked at her apartment door and then at her face and decided, apparently, that leaving her alone was a worse option than staying. That should have bothered her more than it did. Instead, it made the room feel less empty.

He stood near the window now, broad shoulders turned slightly toward the glass, phone in hand, speaking in low clipped tones to someone Serena could only assume was one of the agents handling the report. His voice had that same controlled edge she was starting to recognize, the one that made him sound like he was always holding something back.

Serena sat on the couch with her knees drawn up, trying not to listen too closely. Trying not to notice how different her apartment looked with him in it. Not better. Not safer exactly. Just charged.

When he ended the call, he turned to face her. “They’re checking the area.”

She nodded once. “Thank you.”

His gaze stayed on her for a beat too long. “You haven’t eaten.”

Her mouth tightened. “That’s what you’re worried about right now?”

“Yes.”

She gave him a tired look. “I’m not hungry.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Something about his tone made her want to argue out of pure habit, but the effort of it felt too heavy. The storm had worn her thin. Her nerves were frayed. Every sound outside still seemed to carry too much weight.

Adrian seemed to understand that tonight was not the night for pushing. He moved to the kitchen, opened her fridge, and inspected it with a flat, unimpressed expression. “This is empty.”

“It’s not empty.”

He looked over his shoulder at her. “It is emotionally empty.”

Despite herself, a small breath of laughter escaped her before she could stop it. His eyes shifted back to hers at once, and for a second the room changed. He had a way of looking at her that made her feel seen in a direction she wasn’t used to. Not just noticed. Read. Taken in fully, with all the parts she worked so hard to hide still visible anyway. She looked away first.

“That was almost a joke,” he said.

Serena leaned her head back against the couch. “Don’t sound so shocked.”

“Should I be impressed?”

“Absolutely.”

That earned the smallest curve at the corner of his mouth. It did things to her pulse that she refused to examine too closely. He closed the fridge and, after a moment, said, “Do you want to watch something?”

Serena blinked. “What?”

“A movie. Something mindless.”

Her brows lifted slightly. “Is this your idea of comfort?”

“No.” He paused. “It’s my idea of distraction.”

She looked at him for a second and then, to her own surprise, nodded. Adrian moved with the easy efficiency of a man who always seemed to know where everything was. He found the remote, picked a film without consulting her, and lowered the lights until the apartment had softened into a dim, quiet cocoon. Serena didn’t ask what the movie was. She barely cared. The point was not the film. The point was the storm. And the fact that every time thunder cracked, her body wanted to flinch itself apart.

Adrian sat on the far end of the couch at first, one arm resting along the back, posture relaxed only in the way disciplined men looked relaxed. Serena kept her gaze on the television, though she wasn’t really watching it. The movie played in muted colors across the screen while the rain kept tapping at the windows. Minutes passed. Then more. Serena felt herself begin, slowly, to loosen. Not enough to call it calm. Just enough for the edge of panic to dull. The room was warm. The couch was soft. Adrian’s presence was steady beside her in a way that was oddly grounding.

She became aware of how tired she was. Of how long she had been holding herself together. At some point, without meaning to, she shifted closer. Not much. Just enough that the space between them narrowed. Adrian didn’t move. Didn’t comment. Only glanced down at her briefly before returning his attention to the screen.

Thunder rolled again, closer this time, and Serena’s fingers twitched reflexively. Adrian noticed. Before she could speak, he said quietly, “You’re okay.” The words were simple. Not dramatic. Not forced. They should not have affected her the way they did. But her shoulders dropped by a fraction. The movie kept going. The storm kept raging. And Serena, despite every intention not to, began to feel the first loosened thread of safety she had allowed herself in days. It was dangerous how much she wanted to hold onto that feeling.

Another hour passed. Her head had started to feel heavy. She fought it at first, blinking more slowly, trying to keep herself awake. She did not want to sleep while the storm still moved outside. She did not want to leave herself unguarded. But the warmth of the apartment, the steady hum of the television, and Adrian’s silent presence began to pull at her like gravity. At some point, her shoulder brushed his. She thought about moving away. She didn’t. Adrian had gone utterly still.

Serena, half-drowsy, noticed only dimly when he shifted his arm from the back of the couch to something lower, more careful, giving her room without forcing her into anything. His restraint was so complete it almost startled her even through the haze of tiredness. The next thunderclap came and went. Then another. Serena’s eyelids grew heavy. She barely remembered letting them fall. She barely remembered the slow, inevitable way her body gave up the fight and drifted sideways until her head rested against Adrian’s shoulder.

He went rigid. Not away. Just still. For one long second, he did not move at all, as if he were afraid any motion might wake her or break whatever fragile peace had settled between them. His breathing changed. Shallower at first. Then slower. Serena, half asleep, did not notice the exact moment his heartbeat did. But Adrian did. He felt it first as a sudden sharp awareness, then as a dangerous kind of warmth spreading through his chest, low and unfamiliar and impossible to dismiss. Her weight against him was light. Barely there. Yet it seemed to anchor him in a way nothing else ever had.

He looked down at her. Her face was relaxed in sleep, softer than it was when she was trying not to show pain. Her lashes rested against her cheeks. Her mouth had parted slightly, and the tension that usually lived just beneath her skin had finally eased. She looked younger when she slept. Not innocent. Just unguarded. Adrian’s jaw tightened. This was bad. He knew it immediately. The feeling that had started earlier that week — the slow, invasive pull of attention he had first mistaken for concern — now sharpened into something much more dangerous. He could feel it in the way his pulse had changed, in the way his thoughts had gone strangely quiet around the edges, as if every part of him had narrowed toward the woman asleep against his shoulder. He should move. He didn’t. Instead, he looked at her for longer than he should have, studying the lines of her face, the soft fall of her hair, the faint rise and fall of her breathing. He had seen fear in her eyes, anger in her mouth, exhaustion in the set of her shoulders. This was different. This made his chest feel too tight. The realization settled over him with cold precision. He was attracted to her. Not casually. Not in the careless way men noticed beautiful women. In a way that already felt dangerous. In a way that made him aware of every inch of space where she touched him, every point of contact that reminded him she was real and warm and close enough to matter. Adrian looked back at the television, but the movie had become meaningless. His phone sat silent on the table. The storm had become background noise. All he could feel was her on his shoulder.

After several minutes, Serena stirred. A faint breath. A small shift. Adrian looked down immediately. Her eyes opened slowly, unfocused at first, then found his face. For a second she didn’t move. Then she seemed to realize where she was and straightened, suddenly embarrassed. “Oh.” The word came out soft and sleep-heavy.

Adrian stayed still. “You fell asleep.”

Her cheeks warmed almost instantly. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I know.”

She sat up a little straighter, but not so quickly that the movement didn’t feel a little awkward. “How long was I out?”

“Not long.”

She glanced at him, still half-gathered in sleep, and something in her expression softened before she caught it. “You didn’t wake me.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

He held her gaze for a moment longer than necessary. *Because you looked peaceful. Because I liked the way you fit there. Because I didn’t want to lose the weight of you against me.* None of that could be said. So he said, “You needed it.”

Serena’s throat moved as she swallowed. She looked away first, but not before he saw the faint change in her face — the small, private shift that said she had felt something there too. The storm rattled the windows again. But the room no longer felt quite as cold. Serena tucked one leg beneath her and turned slightly toward him. “You should’ve told me to move.”

Adrian watched her carefully. “Would you have?”

She thought about it. “No,” she admitted.

His gaze held hers. The air between them seemed to tighten at the answer. For one long moment, neither of them spoke. Then Serena reached for the blanket on the couch and pulled it a little higher around herself, the movement slow and absent-minded. Adrian noticed more than he should have. Not because of her body. Because of the trust it implied. She had fallen asleep on him. That meant something. Maybe not everything. But enough. The storm went on. The movie kept playing. And somewhere in the dark quiet of Serena’s apartment, Adrian realized with growing certainty that the danger in this room was no longer only outside.

The movie ended sometime after midnight. Neither of them had been paying much attention to the final twenty minutes. The storm had worn itself into the walls of the apartment, and the quiet left behind felt almost louder than the rain had. Serena was still curled into the couch, the blanket around her legs, the last drowsiness of sleep clinging to her eyes. Adrian stood first. The movement was smooth, controlled, but something in him felt less controlled than before. He turned the television off, then looked down at her with that same steady expression she was beginning to understand too well.

“Go shower,” he said.

Serena blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You’ve been tense all night. It’ll help.”

Her brows lifted. “That is a very bossy way to suggest a shower.”

“It’s not a suggestion.”

She stared at him for a beat, then let out the faintest breath that might have been a laugh if she had been less tired. “You always talk like this?”

“Only when I’m right.”

That earned him a look. But she was too tired to argue for long. Her nerves still felt thin from the storm, and the apartment had finally settled into a quieter kind of stillness. She stood, rolled her shoulders once, and gathered the blanket more securely around herself. Adrian watched her a second longer than necessary.

Serena noticed. Of course she did. She tried not to think too much about the way his attention felt — not obvious, not crude, but direct enough that it changed the air. It made her aware of her own heartbeat, of the way her pulse seemed to pick up whenever his gaze stayed on her too long.

“Don’t look so serious,” she muttered as she headed toward the bathroom.

“I’m always serious.”

“That sounds exhausting.”

“Maybe it is.”

The bathroom door closed behind her with a soft click. Serena leaned back against it for a second, closing her eyes. The storm was still there in the distance, but it felt farther away now. Dimmer. The kind of threat that no longer had its claws in her throat. She set the water to warm, stripped out of her clothes, and let the shower run until steam began to fill the small room.

When she stepped back out, her skin was flushed from the heat, her hair damp and loose around her shoulders. She had changed into what she’d grabbed without thinking — an oversized shirt and soft shorts, the kind she wore at home when she wanted comfort over anything else. The shirt was thin. Too thin, probably. And she realized that too late. She paused for a second in the hallway outside the bathroom, suddenly aware of the quiet apartment beyond and the fact that Adrian was still out there somewhere, waiting. She should have gone back and changed. She didn’t.

Instead, she stepped into the living room. Adrian was standing near the window, one hand in his pocket, the other resting against the edge of the table. He turned when he heard her. And then he went still. Not dramatically. Not enough for anyone else to notice. But Serena noticed everything. His eyes moved over her once, slow and unreadable, and something in the room shifted so sharply it made her breath catch. She had not expected his face to change so little and reveal so much at once. He looked at her like he had just been given a problem he did not know how to solve. She suddenly became aware of how the shirt fell on her, how the warm bathroom air had left her skin faintly glowing, how her clothes were now a little too revealing in the softer light of the apartment. The realization hit her with a wave of embarrassment that made her want to fold her arms over herself, but she resisted on instinct.

Adrian’s throat moved once. Then he looked away. That, more than anything, made her heart stutter. Serena stopped where she was. “What?”

His gaze returned to her face with careful precision. “Nothing.”

“That was not nothing.”

He seemed to choose his words with visible restraint. “You look tired.”

She stared at him. He had just done the equivalent of setting off a fire alarm in her chest and then pretending he hadn’t heard it. “That is a terrible lie,” she said.

His mouth almost curved. Almost. “It wasn’t meant to be convincing.”

The room was quieter now. Too quiet. Serena took a step closer, still trying to read him. “You’re acting strange.”

“I’m acting normal.”

“No, you’re not.”

Adrian’s eyes held hers for a long second. Then, very calmly, he said, “You’re standing there in a way that is making it difficult to continue pretending I’m unaffected.”

Serena went perfectly still. The words landed low and hot in her chest. Her pulse jumped hard once, then again. For a moment neither of them moved. The air between them felt charged enough to crack. Serena’s voice came out quieter than she intended. “That was blunt.”

“Yes.”

“You could have said it more politely.”

“I could have,” he said. “I didn’t.”

Her breath caught. The expression on his face had changed again, barely, but enough. There was restraint there, yes. Control. A kind of disciplined stillness. But beneath it was something she had begun to recognize in flashes — attention that had shifted into something heavier, something more intimate and dangerous. She looked away first, though she hated herself for it. “I’m going to make tea.”

Adrian’s gaze followed her for a second. “You should put on something warmer.”

She gave him a look over her shoulder. “And now you’re sounding concerned.”

“I am concerned.”

“About me getting cold?”

His eyes held hers with maddening steadiness. “About you driving me insane.”

Serena nearly stopped walking. Instead, she swallowed the sudden rush of feeling that went through her and kept moving into the kitchen. Her face was warm now, and she wasn’t sure whether it was from the shower or from him. The kettle clicked as she filled it. Behind her, Adrian moved quietly through the apartment, not crowding her, not speaking. But she was painfully aware of his presence all the same. Every time she turned slightly, she sensed him nearby. Every time the floorboards shifted, she felt it. It was distracting. It was also, unfortunately, becoming addictive.

When she set the mugs out and turned back, she found him leaning in the doorway to the kitchen, watching her with that same intense stillness. The shirt she wore felt suddenly too thin, too soft, too intimate under his gaze. She cleared her throat. “You’re staring again.”

His eyes didn’t move from her face. “You noticed.”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

That single word made her chest go tight. The kettle began to whistle softly. Serena turned away to pour the water, but her hands were less steady than she wanted them to be. She was aware of him behind her, of the tension in the room, of the strange certainty that if she turned around too quickly she might step directly into whatever was waiting between them. She did turn back. And Adrian was still looking at her. Not at her clothes. Not in any obvious way. At her. That should have been enough to calm her. It wasn’t. He accepted the mug when she handed it to him, his fingers brushing hers for the briefest second. It was nothing. It felt like something. Serena pulled her hand back quickly, annoyed at herself for reacting so strongly. Adrian noticed anyway. His eyes lowered to her hand for one brief second, then returned to her face. “You’re very aware of me tonight.”

Her pulse jumped. “You’re imagining things.”

“No,” he said. “I’m not.”

The kettle hissed quieter now. Rain tapped softly at the windows. Serena stared at him across the kitchen, and for a moment the space between them felt like a line stretched too thin. She was suddenly and vividly aware of how alone they were, how late it was, how much he had already seen of her at her worst. And how much she was beginning to see of him. The thought made her chest feel strange. She looked down at her mug, then back up. “You should go home.”

He didn’t answer immediately. When he did, his voice was low. “I know.” But he made no move to leave. And Serena, to her own growing alarm, did not want him to.