Grace
The drive takes us out of the city, through the sprawl of glass and neon until the skyline thins to trees and quiet. I sit in the back seat beside him, wearing clothes retrieved from my case, his coat draped over my legs like a shield.
I should feel safe. Instead, I feel contained.
The further we get from the city, the heavier the silence becomes. Liam doesn’t talk, just watches the world slip by beyond the tinted windows. His profile is all sharp lines and restraint, the kind of man who doesn’t waste words because he never needs to.
I used to be like that, calculated and careful. But that woman feels like a stranger now.
When the car turns off the main road, I expect another hotel. Or a private property somewhere remote. What I don’t expect is home.
The long driveway winds through dense forest before opening up to a sprawling estate. White stone. Iron gates. Ivy crawling across the facade like veins. It looks old, lived-in. The kind of place built by a family that never had to ask permission for anything.
The driver stops at the front steps, and before I can open my door, Liam’s already there, holding it for me. “Come on,” he says quietly.
The main hall smells faintly of beeswax polish and something warm, like bread. It’s not sterile or empty like I imagined his world would be. It’s alive.
And then I hear laughter.
Two voices, a man’s and a woman’s, drifting from somewhere deeper in the house. When they emerge, I freeze.
A man, younger than Liam, with lighter eyes but the same sharp bone structure. A woman in her fifties with deep red hair, wearing a sweater and navy slacks.
His family.
I don’t know what I expected. Maybe that he’d live in isolation, a fortress built on control and silence. But this, this feels almost ordinary. Human.
The woman’s gaze softens when she sees me, flicking between us with quiet curiosity.
“Mother,” Liam says smoothly, his hand settling at the small of my back, possessive and grounding all at once. “This is Grace. She’ll be staying for a while.”
The implication lingers. She’s under my protection.
His mother doesn’t comment, just nods politely, though I can see the flicker of surprise she’s trying to hide. “Of course. I’ll have the blue room prepared.”
I murmur a thank you, my voice barely steady, and follow Liam up the stairs. My pulse thrums with unease. Every step into this house feels like crossing another invisible line.
When we reach the landing, he opens a door to a beautiful, high-ceilinged room that smells faintly of lilac. The bed is enormous, the windows overlooking the forest.
“Rest,” he says simply.
But as he turns to leave, something inside me cracks. “This wasn’t what I signed up for,” I whisper. “I thought I was selling information. Buying protection. Not…” I gesture around helplessly. “This.”
He pauses in the doorway, looking back at me. “This is protection, Grace. It’s just not the kind you were expecting.”
He rubs a thumb over my jawline and I turn into his hand.
“You’re safer outside of the city, at least while the warrants for your arrest get pulled.
” He kisses my forehead and my stomach knots with confusion.
“I have someone working on finding evidence of Hartley’s behaviour towards the women who work for him.
You aren’t the only person who turned him down, the others just didn’t know as much as you do. ”
A sickness begins to roil in my stomach.
Of course I wasn’t the only one. Ex-colleagues start filtering through my mind. Women who were there one day and had “moved-on” the next. Only they never moved on in the same work. I never saw them again.
I pull at the seam of the lining of bag and retrieve the drive I had hidden there.
I hand it to Liam. “It’s everything I have, all of my work for the last five years.”
He closes his fingers around it. “You understand that I will take this information and use it for my own gain too.” It’s not a question, but I nod my head anyway.
There’s a silence for a while where we both adjust to the weight of what’s happening, then he drops his mouth to mine and for that moment everything fades away beneath the press of his lips on mine.
The light sweep of his tongue, relights the fire in me that had begun to flicker under the strain of the last week.
“I’ll be back later, make yourself at home. My family are nosey, so be prepared for questions.”
I huff out a laugh. “Luckily, I’m a pro at handling questions.”
When he’s gone, I sink onto the bed and take a deep, steadying breath. The laughter from downstairs echoes faintly, and I think of my mother. Her warm hands, the smell of rosemary from her garden, the way she’d hum under her breath while cooking. My father’s voice, steady and kind.
They would’ve hated this. Seeing me like this, hiding in a stranger’s house, a criminal’s home, belonging to a man I barely know.
A man who terrifies me almost as much as he steadies me.
I close my eyes and press my palms to my face. I didn’t plan for this. I didn’t plan for him.
I thought I’d walk away from that ballroom as someone’s acquisition, a deal struck in blood and money. But this isn’t business. Not anymore.
This feels like something else entirely. Something that could swallow me whole if I’m not careful.
I don’t know how long I sit there after Liam leaves. Long enough for the sound of his footsteps to fade.
I smooth a hand over the quilt and stand, pushing away the heaviness that’s been curling in my stomach since he left. I can’t just sit here, waiting like some fragile secret he’s smuggled home.
The corridor outside my room is lined with old portraits.
Oil paint and gilt frames. Generations of Orlovs, I assume.
Men with proud shoulders and severe expressions; women who look like they never learned to smile.
I pass them one by one until I catch the scent of something warm drifting up from below.
Coffee, cake, bread maybe. My stomach betrays me with a low growl.
The kitchen is bright, sunlight spilling across white stone counters and copper pots that hang like polished ornaments. It’s the kind of room that looks lived-in, not staged.
And there, at the wide farmhouse table, are two women. Both of them look over when I hover in the doorway.
“Hello Grace,” the older one says first, her tone gentle but assessing.
She stands by the stove, stirring something in a cast-iron pan.
There’s an elegance to her, but not the brittle kind.
She moves like someone used to being obeyed without ever having to raise her voice.
“I’m Saoirse, by the way, Liam’s mother. ”
I smile. I can see it, just faintly, in the shape of her eyes.
“I hope it’s not an inconvenience.”
“Not at all,” she says. “Sit. You look like you haven’t eaten in days.”
“This is my daughter, Iris, Liam’s youngest sister.”
Iris gestures to the chair opposite her. “Mom’s incapable of letting anyone in the house starve. It’s a compulsion.”
Saoirse gives her daughter a look, but there’s affection in it. “Ignore her. She forgets her manners when she’s not charming…investors.”
I smile, the tightness in my chest easing a little. “Thank you. This smells amazing.”
“French toast,” Iris says, sliding a plate toward me. “Mom’s way of interrogating people. Feed them until they talk.”
I almost laugh, but it catches on something in my throat. “I’m not sure I have much to tell.”
“Oh, I doubt that.” Iris props her chin on her hand. “Liam doesn’t bring people home. Ever. So, either you’re very important or very dangerous.”
The words hang there, light but edged. I take a bite of toast to buy time. It’s sweet and soft and painfully domestic. The kind of breakfast I used to make for my parents on lazy Sundays when deadlines didn’t exist. The memory hits hard, sudden and sharp.
“My parents used to make breakfast together,” I say quietly, before I can stop myself. “My mom would hum while she cooked. My dad always burned the toast. Every time.”
Saoirse’s expression softens. “They’re gone?”
I nod, swallowing past the ache. “Both. Years ago.”
For a moment, the kitchen hums with small sounds, the scrape of a fork, the pop of the toaster, the low whistle of the kettle. Then Saoirse says, almost gently, “You must miss them.”
“Every day.”
Iris leans back in her chair. “Sounds like they raised you right, at least. You’ve got better manners than most of the people Liam does business with.”
I let out a small, uncertain laugh. “I doubt he told you what kind of business I was in.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Saoirse says, sliding a mug of coffee in front of me. “You’re here now. Whatever brought you to my son’s doorstep, he obviously thinks you’re worth protecting. That’s all we need to know.”
There’s no accusation in her voice, but the words sink deep anyway. Worth protecting. I don’t know if I am.
I trace a finger around the rim of the mug, avoiding their eyes. “It’s just… a lot. Being here. I didn’t expect…” I trail off, searching for the right words. “I didn’t expect warmth.”
Saoirse smiles faintly. “The world outside these walls can be cold. We do our best to balance it.”
Iris snorts. “That’s Mum’s polite way of saying we tolerate Liam’s moods because she keeps feeding him.”
That makes me laugh properly this time, and the sound feels strange in my chest, like something I haven’t done in too long.
When Saoirse turns back to the stove, Iris lowers her voice. “Just a heads-up. He’s different here. Softer, maybe, but… possessive. You probably figured that out already.”
I glance at her, heart thudding. “You mean protective?”
She shrugs, sipping her coffee. “Same thing, when it comes to Liam.”
Before I can respond, footsteps echo in the hall, heavy and certain. The air shifts before he even appears.
Iris grins and murmurs, “Speak of the devil,” just as Liam steps into the doorway.
His eyes find me instantly, sweeping from my messy hair to the plate in front of me. Something flickers across his face. Approval, relief, ownership. Maybe all three. My stomach flutters and I blush.
“You found the kitchen,” he says.
“I followed the smell of coffee,” I answer, keeping my tone light.
He looks at his mother, then his sister, then back at me. “You’re settling in?”
I nod. “Your family’s been very kind.”
“Good.” His voice softens a fraction. “Eat as much as you want. You’ll need your strength.”
Iris rolls her eyes. “You make it sound like you’re sending her into battle.”
He gives her a look that makes her smirk and look away.
Saoirse wipes her hands on a towel. “Breakfast first, battles later.”
I take another bite, pretending not to notice the way Liam’s gaze lingers on me even now, like he’s memorising the sight of me sitting at his family’s table.
I shouldn’t feel at home here. Not with his family laughing around me, not with the smell of coffee and cinnamon curling through the air, not with the way Saoirse squeezes my shoulder before setting down a mug.
But something inside me loosens, like I’ve been holding my breath for years and only just remembered how to exhale.