Chapter 21
chapter twenty one
There were few things more ridiculous than a six-foot-four bodyguard baking in the July heat, outside a college house, holding a giant bunch of lilies.
But here I was. Standing still. Sweating under my jacket.
Holding these flowers like they were going to shield me from what I'd said—or worse, what I'd done.
The kiss.
God, the kiss.
I didn’t regret it. Not exactly. If anything, a part of me felt like I’d finally let out a breath I’d been holding for weeks. But another part of me—the one that didn’t get a say often enough—was drowning in guilt.
I’d taken this job to keep her safe, to make sure no one ever crossed the line with her again. And what had I done? Crossed it myself. Without warning. Without thought. Just instinct. So didn’t that make me just as bad as the asshole she needed protecting from?
That question had followed me through the night, keeping me awake until 3 a.m. And when the sun finally rose, I found myself at the farmers’ market buying lilies and at Flo’s grabbing a Bakewell tart.
A peace offering. An apology. A pathetic attempt to fix what shouldn’t have broken in the first place.
The apology I’d rehearsed played on repeat in my head, and then I knocked, heart in my throat, sun beating down on me like it wanted answers too. I wasn’t waiting for long; soon enough, the door cracked open, and there she was.
Her onyx hair looked freshly straightened, and her eyes looked foxier than usual thanks to the liner painted on with such precision.
Gone were her teary eyes and blotchy cheeks, and in their place was a sparkle I hadn't seen before and a rosiness that made her look like the very portrait of steadiness.
This couldn't be the same girl that had run from me, crying and silently sobbing into her sleeves after what we'd done.
My eyes held hers as she looked up, her lips slowly popping. “Hey.”
That was an indifferent ‘hey’. And I’d encountered a few of them with her. Either she was about to rain fire on me, or that would be the only conversation we’d have for the rest of the day. I secretly hoped for the former. At least it was something.
“Hi.” I spluttered, those two letters cracking a thousand different ways.
It made her smile, at least.
Then her eyes flicked down to the flowers, and before she could ask, my mouth ran from me. “They’re for you.” I rushed, handing them over to her. But as my hand stretched out and I followed the line of her arm, I saw it.
Not that I would miss it. Because tucked by her side was a canvas.
And it wasn’t blank.
Swirls of purples and violets peeked out from where she held it, mixed with deep blues and streaks of white flowing between like a river.
She looked down at it before lifting her gaze back to me, quiet beauty wrapping around her like something she didn’t even know she carried. “I painted.”
My smile tugged free, unstoppable, no matter how tightly I tried to hold it down. “I can see.” My hand dragged through my hair, disbelief curling in my chest. “What happened?”
She shrugged, eyes slipping away, but when they returned, they burnt with quiet honesty, widening with the memory that had been replaying in my mind all night.
“Oh.”
Oh? That’s all I could say?
Have I always been such a loser?
Perhaps the answer was in the way I couldn’t look away from her, couldn’t breathe without the weight of her pulling at me. I wanted to tell her I was sorry, but she cut me off.
“It’s fine.” Her voice was soft. Gentle. But that didn’t change how both of us knew it wasn’t.
And admitting that would make it real. It would make her real in a way I wasn’t supposed to let happen. But God, I already felt it happening, and I had no idea how to stop it.
She cleared her throat. “It shocked me at first. Really shocked me. But the more I thought about it, as odd as it sounds, I think last night was the first time in a while where I hadn’t felt like that broken girl I was so used to seeing every time I looked in the mirror. I felt… free.”
I nodded down at her, captivated, confused. “And how do you feel about that?”
The corners of her mouth curled. “Happy.” She shrugged. “Well, happier now that I have something to submit to the Nouvelle committee.”
My chest inflated with a deep breath, my smile pulling tight out of nothing but frustration that I’d unknowingly been sucked into her magnetic field. “You sure do.”
Why was she like this? How could she make me want to pull my hair out and then make me want to pick her up and spin her around at how good she made me feel? About the world. About everything.
She must’ve seen the war on my face because she tilted her head.
“Look, the kiss caught me off guard, sure. And yes," She gestured to the canvas. "This happened because of it. But I get why you pulled away. And it's fine. You’re the bodyguard. I’m the client. It’s a conflict of interest. Bodyguard 101, right?”
She wasn’t wrong. But that wasn’t the reason.
My whole life since Lana had been about protecting women like her, about making up for the night I failed. My wants, my dreams—none of that mattered. The only thing that did was keeping them safe, making Lana’s pain mean something.
Wanting Cora felt selfish. Wrong. Like I was stealing something I had no right to. But with her, it wasn’t just protection anymore. It was this impossible pull I couldn’t fight, no matter how many times I told myself I should.
Unfortunately, what we had was a fault line. One wrong move and the whole world would fracture. Those boundaries between us existed for a reason. They were supposed to keep us safe.
But who was I kidding? The second I kissed her, I’d already shattered them.
I looked at her then, really looked, and the weight of it settled heavy in my chest.
“It is,” I breathed, the words slipping out before I could stop them. “You’re right.” I cleared my throat, forcing the weight in my chest to settle.
“So, we’re good?” I tried to sound nonchalant, like I hadn’t just nearly unravelled in front of her.
She bobbed her head before slipping past me, that cloud of sweet vanilla and deep jasmine trailing with her. “Depends. Where did we land on the whole me coming to London with you?”
I narrowed my eyes as I followed her down the steps. “What would you do otherwise?”
She shrugged, leaning against the car door, canvas wrapped in her arms, like it wasn’t my name on the insurance. “Probably still go. Looks like it’s turning into a group trip anyway.” Those eyes glinted with mischief. “So you can take me with you whether you like it or not.”
Exasperation curled through me, but under it was something else. Admiration. Want. The terrifying realisation that this girl would never make things easy—and that I didn’t want her to.
“I like you like this,” I muttered before I could stop myself.
Her laugh was soft and bright. Dangerous. “Like what?”
I took the lilies gently from her hands, holding them like the fragile excuse they were, before forcing myself to look at her smile. My chest tightened, the truth burning up my throat.
“You.”
Her brows arched, smug, lips curving. “Marcus Romano likes me? Is this what power feels like?”
I let out a low laugh, shaking my head. “No, Holland. Power’s what it would take to walk away from me. And we both know I won’t let you do that.”
Her smile tilted—not a victory, not quite—but something knowing. Like she’d already figured out the rules of a game I hadn’t even admitted I was playing.
She turned away with that slow, unhurried sway that made everything in me go painfully still. I stayed where I was, flowers limp at my side, feeling a little foolish and completely gone.
This should’ve been simple. Staying stony and impartial to who she was and what she liked was always rule number one.
I was treating that rule like a suggestion, and only when I caught myself hanging onto the very last seconds of her smile did I realise that maybe I needed to recite my rules more often.
She was right. At the end of the day, we were the guarded and the guarded. Two completely separate things. And if I wanted to keep her safe, then that was how we had to remain. I needed to pack these feelings into something small and sealed. Store it somewhere dark and sensible.
It was what I did with Lana, and now Cora's box, the one that had to remain closed, had to make a home there too.
Whether it was killing me or not.