Chapter 8 Hannah
Hannah
I tore off a chunk of toast, watching Connor stare at the plate like I’d covered it in diamonds instead of scrambling eggs and frying bacon.
He sat down across from me. Took a bite, chewed slowly. Swallowed. Wiped his mouth. Then he set his fork down and said, casual as anything:
“So… how long ago did you leave Callihan & Murphy?”
I froze with my fork halfway to my mouth. My walls rose automatically—bracing for judgment, condescension, pity.
Connor turned his coffee mug slowly between his palms like he hadn’t just dropped a conversational landmine into the middle of our morning.
My heartbeat thudded against my ribs. “What?”
“You worked near Wall Street, probably in the Financial District. You left this spring. You’ve been blacklisted.
And last night, you tracked liquor inventory like you were managing a Fortune 500 balance sheet.
” Connor's gaze was steady, no gotcha smirk.
“I read a dozen version of the reports, but none of them said the name of the whistleblower.”
My chest tightened. I didn’t breathe for a second.
But he didn’t move, didn’t flinch, didn't even seem to blink.
I swallowed hard. “It destroyed everything.”
He nodded. “That means it mattered.”
And that was somehow the worst and best thing he could’ve said.
I stared at my eggs, blinking back the tears that threatened to spill over. “Don’t tell anyone.”
“It’s not mine to tell.” He paused, then added quietly, “And you don’t have to talk about it. Not with me, not with anyone. Not until you’re ready.”
“Why’d you say something, then?”
“Because you shouldn’t have to pretend to be someone else in your own kitchen.”
Under my breath, I muttered: “It’s not my kitchen. It’s yours.”
Connor paused, just long enough for me to notice.
“Well,” he said, lifting his coffee with the ghost of a smile, “that explains why everything’s in the wrong place.”
I huffed a laugh, dying to change the subject before I started crying into my scrambled eggs. “So where do you live in New York?”
He leaned back in his chair, following my redirection. “Battery Park City. Corporate housing that came with the relocation package.”
“Fancy.”
“Bland,” he corrected. “Beige walls, beige furniture. Fully stocked with a Keurig and plastic plants. It’s like living in a hotel.”
“Sounds lonely.”
“It’s temporary.”
His phone buzzed on the table. With just a short vibration, Connor’s shoulders straightened, already back in business mode before he even looked at the screen.
“Good morning, Victoria,” he said simply, lifting it to his ear.
I turned back to my plate, pretending to care deeply about eggs instead of remembering all those weekend mornings my old bosses interrupted to drag me into the office.
The call was short. When he hung up, he didn’t immediately move, just sat staring at his half-finished plate. Then he closed his eyes briefly and exhaled through his nose—seemed like resignation, not frustration.
I didn’t look at him. “Let me guess. She snapped her fingers?”
Connor didn’t take the bait. “She’s leaving in twenty minutes. If I don’t catch a ride with her, it’s double the time on the train.”
I lifted my mug, needing something to hold. “So that’s it? You’re just gone again?”
“I wasn’t supposed to be here at all,” he said gently. “I came for the piano, the reunion. The rest was…”
The rest was… what? An accident? A detour? A mistake?
“I get it. Work calls, you go. Been there,” I said, cutting him off before I could let myself hope for something more than what this was: a one-night almost that we both knew wouldn’t go anywhere.
He stood, started clearing the plates. Even when leaving, he couldn’t help but tidy up after himself.
I let him. Not because I needed the help, but because I didn’t have the energy to stop him.
He rinsed the dishes methodically. When he dried his hands on a dish towel, he finally spoke: “I’ll be back in two weeks. My former boss Alex? He's got an engagement party at Donnelly’s.”
Something loosened in my chest. Not hope, exactly, but something to replace the simmering disappointment.
Connor reached for his suitcase by the door—already packed, of course. He checked his watch, then his phone, then the door like he was calculating exactly how fast he needed to move to meet Victoria downstairs.
But he didn’t leave, just stood there with his hand on the doorknob…
Then he turned back. “Hannah.”
I looked up from where I was still sitting at the table, my pulse suddenly loud in my ears.
“I know I said we’d pick this up in the morning.” His eyes dropped to my mouth, and I felt my breath catch.
He took two steps back toward me, but not close enough to touch. I stood slowly, my chair scraping softly against the floor.
His jaw tightened. “I want to kiss you goodbye, but if I start, I won't leave on time.”
Heat flooded through me—want and frustration and something dangerously close to hope all tangled together. I closed some of the distance between us. Not all of it, just enough to show him I wanted this too.
Just enough to make it a choice we’d both have to make.
I stood close enough that I could see the conflict in his eyes—duty pulling him one direction, desire pulling him another.
For a moment, I thought he might say fuck it. Might throw his perfectly calculated timeline out the window, close that last bit of space, and kiss me the way he had in the pre-dawn dark.
But Connor McNamara was nothing if not disciplined.
He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, just like last night, intimate and careful. His thumb traced my cheekbone, and I could feel the restraint in his touch.
“Two weeks,” he said again. A promise this time.
“Two weeks,” I echoed.
Then he stepped back, grabbed his suitcase, and walked out the door, leaving my skin warm where he’d touched me.
I looked around at the kitchen that wasn’t mine, in the apartment that would be vacant in six months.
The breakfast dishes dripped in the drying rack, left behind by a man who just walked away, yet still lingered in the smell of coffee and woodsy body wash, the memory of flannel sheets and almost-kisses.
The apartment settled into silence around me—just the hum of the refrigerator and the sound of my own heart wondering what the hell just happened.