Chapter 21
The SUV cut through the last stretch of upstate roads, the landscape still winter-bleached, the trees bare and black against a pale sky. My coat was zipped to my chin, coffee warming my hands, my suitcase tucked behind my seat like an afterthought.
I kept trying to read him in the small movements—how often he checked mirrors, how he watched exits, how he never quite relaxed even when everything was normal.
Normal.
I’d used that word in my head once and almost laughed.
There was nothing normal about him coming with me.
There was nothing normal about me letting him.
The airport appeared ahead, all glass and signage and lanes that funneled people into their next selves. Cassian veered toward the executive parking entrance, the gate lifting without hesitation as he pulled through.
Of course.
He parked with the same efficiency he did everything else—no wasted movement, no second guessing—then cut the engine and stepped out, already scanning the area before I had even reached for my door.
By the time I opened it, he was there.
He didn’t wait for me to struggle with anything.
He took my suitcase from the back without asking, slung it easily like it weighed nothing, and fell into step beside me as we headed toward the terminal.
Not a half-step behind.
As if he’d already decided where he belonged.
Inside, the air was too warm and too bright. People moved in streams—families, couples, business travelers with rolling bags and tired faces. A woman in a hat laughed into her phone. A child cried. A man argued with a gate agent. Life, continuing.
And Cassian moved through it like a blade through fabric.
I felt eyes flick toward him, then away. Not because he was loud or flashy. He wasn’t.
Because he had that thing—quiet dominance that didn’t ask to be noticed and still drew attention like gravity.
He glanced down at me once, subtle. “You’re tense.”
I huffed softly. “I’m in an airport.”
“That’s not why.”
I slid my coffee lid with my thumb, buying time. “Fine. I’m … aware.”
His mouth curved faintly. “You’ve been aware.”
“Different kind of aware.”
He looked ahead. “Explain.”
I almost laughed again. Cassian Locke asking for explanation like it was a language he actually spoke.
“You’re … here,” I said. “In public. In my world. And you don’t look like you’re visiting.”
“I’m not,” he said.
The simplicity of it made my throat tighten.
We reached the airline counter before I could decide how I felt about that sentence. Cassian gave his name to the attendant and a credit card appeared in his hand like it had always been there. No fumbling. No pockets. No wasted motion.
He didn’t look at me when he upgraded something.
He didn’t ask.
He just did it.
I watched the attendant’s expression flicker—professional smile sharpening into sudden attentiveness. Her tone changed. Her posture changed.
Money did that.
Not the kind that begged to be seen, but the kind that rearranged rooms without ever raising its voice.
Cassian took our boarding passes, thanked her once, and turned away as if none of it mattered.
It did, though.
It mattered in the same way the South of Broad address mattered.
Not because I cared about luxury.
Because it implied reach. Infrastructure. A life that existed behind the few facts he’d allowed me to hold.
I followed him toward security, my mind spinning.
I didn’t know what he did for work. “Security” was a word that covered a thousand sins and a thousand respectable jobs, and Cassian wore it like a shield.
But the way he moved through the world didn’t belong to a man who merely worked.
It belonged to a man who owned.
He placed our bags on the belt, stepped through screening without breaking stride, and when a TSA agent’s gaze lingered a beat too long on me, Cassian didn’t say anything.
He simply shifted closer.
A silent message in the space between us: She’s with me.
My skin prickled.
By the time we reached the concourse, I felt like I’d been holding my breath for an hour.
Cassian led us to a lounge without asking directions. Of course, he knew where it was.
Inside, everything was softer—plush seats, muted lighting, quiet voices. The kind of space designed to make travel feel like it wasn’t travel at all.
Cassian set my bag beside a chair and sat across from me like he’d done it a hundred times, one ankle resting on the opposite knee, hands relaxed but ready.
I stared at him.
He noticed. “What.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a prompt.
“You planned this,” I said.
His brow lifted slightly. “Planned what.”
“You coming.” I tried to keep my voice neutral. “You didn’t decide at dinner. You didn’t decide last night. You were already … moving.”
His gaze held mine, steady.
“I told you I don’t explain my adjustments,” he said.
“That’s infuriating,” I muttered.
His mouth curved faintly again. “I know.”
I leaned back, crossing one leg over the other, trying to build a wall out of posture. It didn’t work. Not with the way he watched me—like my defenses were interesting, not effective.
“Okay,” I said. “Then answer something else.”
He didn’t speak, but his attention sharpened. Permission.
“What happens when we land?” I asked. “You just … step into my life?”
“Yes.”
The certainty made my stomach flip.
“That’s not how things work,” I said.
“That’s how this does.”
I stared at him. “And you’re not worried about the blowback?”
His eyes stayed on mine. “From who?”
That was the problem. He didn’t mean it as bravado. He meant it as fact. Like “who” was a small question.
“My career,” I said, because that was the sharpest knife I had. “My reputation. My work. The irony of me showing up on someone’s arm—”
His eyes darkened slightly. “On my arm.”
I blinked, heat sparking low in my belly even as irritation flared.
“That’s what you heard?” I asked.
“That’s what you meant,” he said.
My pulse jumped.
I looked away, annoyed at myself for reacting, annoyed at him for noticing.
Cassian’s voice dropped. “You’re not ashamed.”
I turned back. “I should be.”
“No,” he said, calm as stone. “You’re afraid of being misread.”
The accuracy of it made me go still.
He watched my face for a beat, then leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees, voice quieter.
“I’m not here to cost you,” he said. “I’m here because you chose. And you’re still choosing.”
My throat tightened.
“Don’t say it like that,” I muttered.
“Like what.”
“Like you’re—” I struggled for the word. “Like you’re inevitable.”
His mouth barely moved, but something in his eyes did. Something almost like approval.
“You want to be able to walk away,” he said.
“Yes.”
“You can.”
I laughed once, sharp. “That’s generous.”
“It’s true.”
“And if I do?” I challenged.
His gaze stayed steady. “Then you’ll do it for a reason you can live with.”
The words landed deeper than they should have. Not because they were romantic.
Because they sounded like trust.
Boarding was called. Cassian stood first, offered his hand like it was the most natural thing in the world.
I stared at it.
He waited.
Not forcing. Not pressuring. Just there.
Choice.
My fingers slid into his.
The contact was simple and electric.
We walked to the gate together, hand-in-hand, and I felt the shift happen in real time—people registering us as a unit. A couple. A thing.
My stomach twisted, but it wasn’t only fear.
It was the thrill of being seen with him.
And that was the most dangerous part.
On the plane, he took the window seat without discussion, leaving me the aisle like he’d already decided he wanted a line of sight to everyone who might come near us.
Of course.
He stowed bags, settled, and the moment we were in the air, the world outside became cloud and bright sky, and the cabin noise softened into a steady hum.
I watched his hands for a minute—strong, capable, scar at his wrist visible where his sleeve rode up.
“You’re thinking again,” he said.
I looked at him. “You like saying that.”
“It helps you,” he replied.
“How.”
“It brings you back.”
My breath caught slightly. “Back from what.”
“From getting too far ahead,” he said. “You do that.”
I exhaled. “Because if I can predict, I can control.”
His gaze held mine. “And if you can’t.”
“I panic,” I admitted, softer than I meant to.
Cassian’s eyes didn’t soften. But his hand lifted, slow, and settled over mine where it rested on the armrest.
My pulse jumped.
“What?” I asked, voice thin.
“You’re here,” he said.
My throat tightened again.
It was such a simple phrase.
But from him, it felt like a vow.
I laced my fingers with his because I couldn’t stop myself.
“And you’re coming into my real life,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Why does it feel like you’re not the one who should be nervous?” I asked.
His mouth curved faintly. “Because I’m not.”
I narrowed my eyes. “That’s arrogant.”
“That’s honest.”
I leaned my head back against the seat, staring at the ceiling for a moment.
Then I turned back to him. “Tell me about your place.”
His thumb brushed once over my knuckles. “In Charleston.”
“Yes.”
“South of Broad,” he said, as if repeating it didn’t change how loaded it was.
“What is it?” I pressed. “A condo. A townhouse. A—”
“A house,” he said.
Of course it was.
“How big?”
He glanced at me like he was considering whether that mattered. “Big enough.”
I rolled my eyes. “Cassian.”
His mouth twitched. “Three stories. Walled garden. Old place.”
“Old like … historic old?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I swallowed. “And you just … have that?”
“Yes.”
There it was again—wealth as a quiet fact, not a performance.
It made my mind spin in the same circle it had been circling since the lodge, since the upgrades, since the way rooms moved when he entered.
“You’ll stay there,” I said.
“Yes.”
“And you want me to stay with you.”
A pause.
“If you want to,” he said again, but his fingers tightened slightly around mine. Just enough to betray the truth.
He wanted it.
He just wouldn’t beg.
“Why not a hotel?” I asked.
His gaze sharpened. “No.”
The single syllable was absolute.
“Because you don’t share,” I murmured before I could stop myself.
His eyes flickered—dark, intent.
“No,” he said. “I don’t.”
Heat curled low in my belly again, sharp and immediate.
I tried to breathe through it like a sane person.
“What about Harper?” I asked, changing direction because if I didn’t, I was going to do something reckless in a plane seat.
Cassian’s thumb kept moving slowly across my knuckles, grounding me in the present.
“I told you—I want to meet her,” he said. “And her husband.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s part of your life,” he replied. “And I’m stepping into it.”
The words should have alarmed me.
Instead, they made something in my chest loosen.
“You’re doing this like it’s … inevitable,” I said again.
His gaze held mine. “You keep saying that.”
“Because it feels true.”
A beat passed.
Then, quieter, “It feels true to me, too.”
My breath caught.
That was the softening.
A single sentence that admitted something without making it sound like weakness.
I stared at him, heat and fear and something dangerously tender tightening together inside me.
“And what does that mean,” I asked softly, “when we land?”
Cassian’s hand covered mine fully now, warm and steady.
“It means you go home,” he said. “And I come with you.”
My pulse hammered.
“And if my life doesn’t make room for you?” I asked.
His eyes darkened, voice low. “Then we make room.”
It should have sounded controlling.
It did sound controlling.
And yet—beneath it—there was something else.
A promise that he wasn’t going to vanish at the first sign of inconvenience.
That he wasn’t going to treat me like a weekend fantasy and then disappear back into the woods.
I swallowed, throat tight.
“You’re going to be seen,” I said. “With me.”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t care.”
His gaze stayed steady. “I care.”
That stopped me.
He didn’t look away.
“I care what it costs you,” he said. “I care what it feels like for you. I care if you regret it.”
My chest tightened painfully.
“But you’re still coming,” I whispered.
“Yes.”
“Why?” I asked, voice almost gone.
Cassian’s thumb brushed my knuckles one more time.
“Because you’re not an idea anymore,” he said. “You’re real.”
My breath shuddered out of me.
Outside the window, the clouds broke, and far below, the coastline began to appear in pale winter light—water and marsh and land that looked like home.
Charleston.
My world.
The place where I was composed and known and safe in the ways I’d built.
And now—
Now I was bringing him into it.
I looked at our hands, intertwined. At the steadiness of him.
“You’re going to ruin my peace,” I murmured.
Cassian’s mouth curved faintly, but his eyes stayed serious.
“No,” he said. “I’m going to change it.”
I swallowed.
And because I couldn’t help myself, because my body was honest even when my mind tried to be careful, I leaned in and pressed my mouth to his—soft, brief, a promise sealed in public where anyone could have seen.
When I pulled back, his gaze locked on mine, darker now.
“Careful,” he murmured.
“Why?” I asked, breathless.
“Because if you do that again,” he said, voice low and steady, “I’m going to forget we’re surrounded.”
Heat rushed through me, fast and sharp.
I held his gaze, anyway.
“Then don’t forget,” I whispered. “Remember who you are.”
His fingers tightened around mine.
“And who are you?” he asked, quiet and dangerous.
I swallowed, heart hammering.
“I’m the woman you’re bringing home,” I said.
Cassian stared at me for a long beat.
Then he nodded once—small, decisive.
“Yes,” he said. “You are.”
And as the plane began its descent, Charleston rising to meet us, I felt the shape of what was coming settle around my shoulders.
Not a cage.
A claim.
And somehow, terrifyingly—
I didn’t want to escape it.