Chapter 13 #2
“Then tell me to stop,” he murmurs.
Isla doesn’t.
Her hand slides up his forearm, fingers curling into his sleeve, and Callum’s heart slams hard against his ribs. For one wild second, he thinks she’s going to kiss him again. Thinks he might let her. Thinks the consequences can burn later.
Then her phone buzzes.
The sound is absurdly loud in the quiet.
The spell shatters.
Isla pulls back abruptly, pressing her hand to her chest as if she’s trying to reassemble the pieces of herself.
“We can’t,” she says, more to herself than to him. “Not now.”
Callum drops his hand immediately, stepping back. The loss of contact feels like a physical blow.
“You’re right,” he says, forcing calm into his voice. “We focus.”
Isla nods, breathing hard. “We find what he hid.”
She turns back to the papers with renewed urgency, anger sharpening her movements into something fierce.
Callum follows her lead, because if he doesn’t, he will reach for her again.
They search for patterns. The “A.” notation appears twice more in different forms: an initial, a half-finished phrase, a line scratched out so heavily the paper thins.
“‘A’ must be for Alisha. That’s the only person it could be.”
Callum flips through Keir’s battered notebook again. Music fills most of the pages, but tucked between two sections is a folded sheet of paper, yellowed and creased with age.
He unfolds it carefully.
Isla steps closer, close enough that her shoulder brushes his. She doesn’t pull away this time. Neither does he.
It’s a list. Short. Practical. Written in Keir’s impatient hand.
Documents — north wing.
Old room. Locked.
Callum’s stomach tightens.
Isla reads it, then looks at him. “There’s another room.”
“There used to be,” Callum says. “Storage suite in the north wing. It was sealed years ago. Damp, drafty, mostly useless.”
“Unless you’re hiding something,” Isla says.
Callum nods slowly. “Unless you’re hiding something.”
Isla’s gaze drops to the note again, then to the “A.” notation. Her mind is working fast, connecting lines.
“Keir stored legal papers elsewhere,” she says, voice steady but sharp. “And he used an initial when he wrote about whoever stopped him. Mostly my mother.”
Callum exhales. “Yes.”
Isla’s phone pings again, an email this time, the screen lighting. She doesn’t look, but Callum catches the subject line: URGENT: Confirmation Needed / Contractual Obligations.
He feels something dark twist in his gut.
“They’re trying to pull you back,” he says.
Isla’s eyes flash. “Let them try.”
It’s the most defiant thing she’s said since she arrived.
Callum finds himself staring at her, at the fire in her expression, at the way she holds herself like she’s finally choosing her own direction.
He shouldn’t admire it. Admiration will turn into want too fast.
He does anyway.
“We should go,” Callum says, voice rougher than he intends. “Before you change your mind.”
Isla’s gaze snaps to his. “I’m not going to change my mind.”
Callum nods and gathers the note, tucking it carefully into the folder. When he hands it to her, his fingers brush hers. The contact is brief, but it lands like an echo.
Her breath catches.
His does too.
Neither of them speaks.
They move through the castle together, not side by side like companions, but close enough that Callum is constantly aware of her. The corridors are colder in the north wing, the stone damp with age. The air smells faintly of dust and old secrets.
Isla glances up at the high ceilings, the narrow windows, the shadows pooled in corners. “This part feels… forgotten.”
“It mostly is,” Callum says. “No reason to come here unless you’re avoiding something.”
Isla’s mouth tightens. “Or looking for it.”
Callum leads her down a narrower corridor, one he rarely uses, to an old tapestry that hangs heavy and faded. Behind it, half hidden, is a door.
Iron lock. Thick hinges. The kind of door that isn’t meant for casual entry.
“This is it,” Callum says.
Isla steps closer, studying the lock. “Keir kept this locked?”
“Always.”
She turns to him. “And you never opened it.”
Callum feels the question beneath her words: Why did you respect his boundaries when he never respected mine?
“I didn’t,” Callum admits. “Because it wasn’t my place.”
Isla’s eyes search his face. “Everything in this castle is your place.”
Callum swallows. “Not this.”
Isla holds his gaze a moment longer, then nods once as if accepting the answer without forgiving it.
Callum pulls out the keyring Keir kept in his nightstand. He tries one key. Nothing.
Another. Still nothing.
Isla shifts impatiently, arms folded. “Of course, it wouldn’t be easy.”
Callum suppresses a grim smile. “Keir didn’t like easy.”
He pauses, then selects a thinner key, unmarked, one he almost overlooked.
It turns.
The lock gives with a soft, reluctant click.
Isla exhales like she didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath.
Callum pushes the door open. It groans on old hinges, sound echoing down the corridor.
Inside, the room is dim and cold. He flicks on the light switch and it shows that dust coats everything. Shelves line the walls, stacked with boxes and trunks and old cases, the air thick with neglect. It smells of damp stone and paper left too long.
Isla steps inside slowly, reverently, as if she’s entered a chapel.
“This is it,” she whispers.
Callum follows, letting go of the door, which doesn’t close completely.
Isla moves deeper, scanning the shelves. Her breath fogs faintly in the cold air. “He hid this well.”
“He hid everything well,” Callum says softly.
Isla turns, looking at him. The dim light catches in her eyes, making them look darker, more intense.
For a moment, she isn’t the polished pianist or the furious heir. She’s simply a daughter standing in the shadow of a father she never got to know.
Callum feels something twist in his chest.
He takes a step toward her without thinking.
Isla doesn’t retreat.
They stand too close again. Close enough that Callum can feel warmth radiating off her despite the cold room. Close enough to remember her taste, the way she’d kissed him like she needed something to hold onto.
Her gaze flicks to his mouth.
Callum’s throat tightens.
He should step back.
He doesn’t.
The room is silent except for their breathing. For a heartbeat, Callum thinks she might kiss him again. He thinks he might let her.
Then there’s a faint sound behind them.
A shift.
A soft thud.
Callum turns sharply.
The door.
It’s closed, more than closed. The old latch has dropped into place completely, as if settling under its own weight. The heavy iron bolt sits flush.
Callum crosses the room and grips the handle, testing it.
It doesn’t move.
He tries again, harder.
Nothing.
Isla’s voice is quiet behind him. “What is it?”
Callum keeps his hand on the handle, forcing himself to stay calm. “It’s stuck.”
Isla steps closer. “Stuck how?”
Callum tries the lock. The key turns, but the bolt doesn’t lift. Old mechanisms. Damp. Settled iron that doesn’t want to move.
He swears under his breath.
Isla’s breath hitches, not panic, not yet, but awareness sharpening. “We’re locked in.”
Callum turns to look at her. The dim light catches the line of her throat as she swallows. Her eyes are wide, but not with fear, something else.
A sudden, electric understanding.
They are alone. Trapped. In a hidden room full of Keir MacLaren’s secrets.
And neither of them can pretend the tension between them doesn’t exist.
Callum feels it too, the silence tightening around them, charged and dangerous.
He doesn’t move closer.
He doesn’t step away.
Isla doesn’t either.
They stand in the cold, dusty air, staring at each other as the reality settles.
The castle has shut the door on them.
And the quiet between them is not empty.
It’s loaded.
It’s the kind of silence that can become a confession if either of them breathes wrong.
Callum keeps his hand on the useless door handle, jaw tight, pulse loud in his ears.
Isla’s gaze drifts, just once, to his mouth, then back to his eyes.
Neither of them speaks.
Neither of them looks away.
And the click of the lock feels like the beginning of something they can no longer avoid.
“How are we going to get out?” she whispers.
The question is soft, but her voice isn’t. It’s low, unsteady, threaded with something that has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the way the room has closed in on them.
“We’re not,” he says quietly. “Not unless we call for help.”
The truth lands between them, and the worst truth follows it. He doesn’t want to. Not yet. Not now.
She takes a step closer. Then another. Each one deliberate, like she’s crossing a line she knows she won’t uncross. The air between them tightens, charged, unforgiving.
“I feel reckless,” she says, her gaze locked on his, daring him to stop her.
Callum’s breath leaves him in a rough exhale. “I’ve been fighting that since you walked into this room.”
That’s all the warning she gets.
He closes the distance in a single step and kisses her, not careful, not gentle, but raw and urgent, like the truth they’ve both been refusing to say. His mouth crashes into hers, stealing her breath, his hands coming up as if he needs to ground himself or he’ll lose control completely.
She makes a sound against his mouth, soft, broken, and grips his shirt, pulling him closer, like she’s done pretending this doesn’t matter.
The kiss is desperate. Unfiltered. It tastes like anger and grief and want and the terrible relief of not being alone with it anymore.
For one suspended moment, there is nothing else.
Not the lock.
Not the secrets.
Not the consequences waiting outside the door.
Only this.
Only them.