Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Kieran
Sunday morning arrived, its light filtering through the window and beyond, the low hum of the city. Dawn had brought slow, lingering sex in Stefan’s bed. In deference to my back, Stefan had asked that I ride him, which was fine by me.
As long as I could kiss him while he was inside me, that worked just fine.
I could kiss him all day.
And probably would, given have a chance.
The evening had left its stamp on me. There were moments of quiet when I found myself back at the party, Stefan’s hand on me, Stefan’s flogger…
The space I’d encountered, the clarity of thought, the calm and peace that had followed it.
Feelings I wanted to experience again.
Stefan moved easily around the kitchen, but there was something different in the air. I could feel it in the space between us. I was suddenly aware of him in a way I hadn’t been before.
A way I didn’t have a name for yet, and that was the problem. I needed to understand it.
Understand him.
“You’re very quiet.”
I glanced up. Stefan was watching me.
“I’m thinking.”
His lips twitched. “I gathered.” He tilted his head to one side. “What about?”
There it was, my invitation.
Or maybe a warning.
I hesitated. Because once I asked, there would be no un-asking it.
But the question had been there since the night before, sitting beneath the surface, growing heavier the longer I ignored it. I’d seen Stefan with his friends, we’d spent virtually every day together since my arrival, but when I tried to sum up everything I knew about him?
I came up empty.
Stefan was an enigma. A mystery man.
So ask him.
All I needed was a place to start.
“Did you love Cole?”
He blinked, then chuckled. “It isn’t often that I’m taken by surprise.”
I said nothing, silently willing him not to shut me down.
Stefan carried his mug over to where I sat on the couch, and joined me.
“Cole and I were together for six months. And to answer your question, no, I didn’t love him, but then again, he didn’t love me.
It wasn’t that kind of relationship.” He smiled.
“It was more of an… arrangement, I suppose. He needed somewhere to stay. We enjoyed each other’s company.
” His eyes gleamed. “We certainly enjoyed each other. What can I say? It worked.”
“And when it didn’t?”
“It ended.” No drama, no residue, only a simple statement of fact. “So no, it wasn’t love, but we were both okay with that.”
The clarity of it caught me off guard.
“Have you ever been in love?”
Stefan didn’t answer immediately, but leaned back, his eyes focused on mine, as if weighing not the answer, but how much of it to give.
That pause told me everything.
“Yes,” he said at last. One word, but not uttered casually.
And suddenly, I was very aware of how much this mattered.
“Was that… recent?”
There was a pause before he answered. “No.” He let out a sigh. “It was a long time ago.”
“Were you together long?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. “Several years.”
Of course it had lasted a while. I already knew Stefan didn’t do anything in half measures.
My throat tightened. “What happened?” The question slipped out before I could soften it. I wasn’t about to take it back, however.
I needed to know.
Stefan’s gaze shifted briefly, not away from me but inward, as though he was stepping back into a place he didn’t visit often. “Erik and I wanted different things.” There was no bitterness in his tone. “He wanted a life that was more structured, more… defined.”
“And you didn’t.”
He stared into his coffee. “I didn’t want to promise something I couldn’t sustain.” The words were calmly uttered but they carried weight.
“So you ended it.”
“We ended it,” he corrected. “Before it turned into something else. We cared about each other too much to pretend it would work if it didn’t.”
I nodded. That felt honest. “And since then?”
Stefan’s expression changed, morphing from reflective to precise. “Since then, there have been several arrangements.” He met my gaze. “I don’t build something I know won’t last.” His tone was uncompromising.
All of a sudden, I saw the difference between that longer relationship and the subsequent men in his life. The former had history, significance, weight.
The latter didn’t.
I wrapped my hands around my coffee again, grounding myself. Because now I understood something I hadn’t before.
Stefan didn’t avoid connection. He avoided pretending something was more than it was.
That made everything between us far more complicated than I wanted it to be.
It also hurt, and for a moment I wasn’t sure why. Then I had it.
He could love someone deeply, and still let them go.
“That must have been hard,” I said after a minute. “To finish after all those years together.”
“It was,” he replied. “But it was the right thing to do.”
I understood that, or at least I understood why someone would say it.
And now that it was all out in the open, everything about him made sense. The way he held back. The way he never assumed. How he let things unfold without trying to control the outcome. Stefan wasn’t distant—he was deliberate, careful.
And I was in trouble.
Whatever was going on between us didn’t feel fleeting. Not for me, not anymore.
“Thank you,” I said.
He frowned. “For what?”
“For telling me.”
Stefan studied me for a moment, then smiled. “You asked.”
The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable, but it wasn’t simple either. Because now I knew exactly what kind of man he was, and what he would—and wouldn’t—do.
If anything, that made my situation worse. I wasn’t simply trying to understand him anymore. I was trying to understand why, knowing all of that, I didn’t want to walk away.
I didn’t want to lose him.
My chest tightened. If Stefan only allowed something real when it truly mattered, then there was no middle ground, no safe space to exist in between. You were either something or you weren’t. And if you were, then it carried weight. Expectation.
Risk.
I swallowed, my gaze flicking to him again. The way he spoke, listened, occupied the space so effortlessly? This wasn’t a man who drifted into things. He chose or he didn’t.
With a sudden clarity that made my stomach plummet, I knew I wasn’t like Cole. I couldn’t be, not now, not after everything that had happened.
Not after the way I felt when I looked at him.
This isn’t simple anymore. Not for me.
I wasn’t something casual, and I didn’t think I ever could be.
Not with him.
My phone buzzed, and I glanced at it.
Karl.
I opened the message and read it. “Do you have any plans for this evening?” I asked him.
Stefan frowned. “Not at the moment. Why?”
“Karl is inviting us to dinner.”
His lips twitched. “Why does this feel as if I’m being taken home to meet the parents?”
“Would you mind?” I’d seen so little of Karl, and having him meet Stefan felt important. Karl was my past, and Stefan was—could be—
Don’t. Don’t even go there.
“No, that’s fine. Tell him yes.” He picked up a book and opened it.
My thumbs slid over the screen. “Done.” Then I saw a text I’d missed.
Diana: Are you still alive, or have the men in leather eaten you? Okay, forget I wrote that, because that came out so wrong.
I smiled and reached for my laptop bag.
In my email, I made no mention of how much time I was spending in one man’s company, because she’d probably read more into it—
The way I’m doing?
Except that wasn’t true. I was trying desperately not to read too much into it, because on that road lay heartache and pain. Eventually.
I made the mistake of glancing at my calendar, which only served to remind me that the deadline for the investigation report was drawing nearer.
Maybe it was the eternal optimist in me, but I wasn’t worried.
Not about my job, at any rate—I knew I was innocent, and that Ollie was a lying little shit.
The burden of proof was on them, and no way could they find evidence for something which had never happened.
No, what occupied my thoughts was something else entirely.
That any day now, I’d get the call to return to Manchester, and that would be the end of this.
I stared at the screen for a moment longer, then without meaning to, I looked up.
Stefan was reading, one leg crossed over the other, his glasses low on his nose, completely at ease in a way that made it seem as though the world adjusted itself around him rather than the other way round.
My gaze lingered, and I forced myself to look back at my laptop.
The end of this…. But what the hell was this? I had no clear idea.
Yeah, of course I didn’t.
I typed a few words, deleted them, then read the same line three times without taking any of it in.
All I was aware of was him. His quiet presence. The way he turned a page. I knew if I looked up, he’d still be there, his posture unchanged, one hand resting against his jaw, his attention still on his book.
Except now I knew better. He was aware of me. He always was.
And therein lies my problem. An invisible iron band tightened around my chest.
This visit was more than an experience. It wasn’t just Berlin anymore. And it definitely wasn’t something I could pretend would end cleanly, neatly, without leaving any trace.
My gaze dropped again, but the words on the screen meant nothing. Because all I could think was that Stefan was right there, and in a few days, a week, two at the most, he wouldn’t be.
My fingers hovered uselessly over the keyboard.
I didn’t want an end to this, not in a “this has been nice” kind of way.
And there it was again, that I don’t want to leave him thought.
That hurt more than anything else.
Then the skin on my arms prickled, and I glanced up to find Stefan watching me.
My stomach tightened.
“Is everything all right?” he asked. His voice was calm, even, as if he were asking about the weather. As if he hadn’t just caught me in the middle of something I wasn’t ready to explain.
I nodded too quickly. “Yeah, everything’s fine.”
A lie, and not a convincing one either.