4. Elizabeth
— ? —
Elizabeth
Sleep won’t come.
I lie in my cold bed, staring at the ceiling, counting the shadows cast by moonlight through the curtains. The house is silent around me, that oppressive quiet that seems to swallow sound, and my thoughts won’t stop spinning.
My father. The promise. The man down the hall who said he’d be at breakfast tomorrow and looked almost pained when he said it, like basic civility was a concession he wasn’t sure he could afford.
Grief and nerves tangle in my chest until I can’t bear the stillness anymore.
I slip out of bed, pulling on my robe over my silk nightgown - the pink one, short, the only pretty thing I brought from my old life - and pad downstairs in bare feet.
The house feels different at night. Larger, somehow. Emptier. The portraits on the walls seem to watch me as I pass, generations of Fairweathers judging the interloper in their midst.
I make my way to the kitchen, guided by memory and moonlight. Maybe tea will help. Maybe a snack. Maybe just the act of moving will quiet the noise in my head.
The kitchen is vast and dark, marble countertops gleaming silver in the light from the windows. I’m reaching for the light switch when I see him.
Jarec stands at the window, shirtless, a glass of whiskey in his hand.
I stop breathing.
The moonlight carves shadows along the muscles of his back, the ridges of his shoulders, the defined lines of his arms. He’s built like something classical, like a statue come to life, and the sight of all that bare skin does something complicated to my insides.
He doesn’t turn around.
“Can’t sleep either?”
His voice is low, rough with something that might be exhaustion. I should leave. Should retreat to my room and pretend I never saw him like this, vulnerable and unguarded.
Instead, I step further into the kitchen.
“I was going to make tea.”
“There’s whiskey, if you’d prefer.”
“I don’t drink much.”
“Neither do I.” He lifts the glass, studies the amber liquid. “Except when I can’t quiet my head.”
I move to the counter, hyperaware of his presence. The air between us feels charged, electric, like the moment before a storm breaks. I reach for the kettle, fill it with water, set it on the stove.
Every movement feels too loud in the silence.
“You can turn around,” I say. “I’ve seen shirtless men before.”
It’s a lie. I’ve seen photographs, paintings, the occasional beach scene from a distance. But never like this. Never someone I’m married to, someone whose chest I pressed against just hours ago in a narrow hallway.
He turns.
His eyes sweep down my body before he can stop himself. The silk nightgown is short, barely reaching my thighs. Pink and delicate against my skin, the fabric thin enough that the cold has made certain things obvious.
His gaze lingers longer than it should.
“Nice nightgown,” he says, and there’s something dark in his voice that makes my stomach flip.
“It was a gift.” From myself, years ago, bought on sale because it made me feel pretty. I’ve never had anyone to wear it for.
Until now.
Not that I’m wearing it for him. I’m wearing it because it’s what I sleep in. Because I didn’t expect to run into my shirtless husband in the kitchen at one in the morning.
“You should put on a robe.”
“I’m wearing a robe.”
“It’s open.”
I look down. He’s right - the robe has fallen open, the silk nightgown on full display. I should close it. Should cover myself, maintain some semblance of modesty.
I don’t.
“It’s my kitchen too,” I say instead. “I can wear what I like.”
Something flickers in his expression. He sets down his whiskey glass with a click that seems too loud.
“Elizabeth.”
“Jarec.”
We stare at each other across the moonlit kitchen, two strangers in a strange situation, and the tension stretches between us like a wire pulled too tight.
The kettle whistles.
I turn to take it off the heat, and the sudden movement makes me clumsy. My hand slips. The edge of the counter catches my finger, and I hiss as pain flares bright and sharp.
“Damn-”
He’s there before I can react, taking my hand in his, examining the cut with a frown. Blood wells bright against my pale skin, a thin red line across my fingertip.
“It’s nothing,” I say. “Just a scratch.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“I’ve bled before.”
“Not in my kitchen.” He guides me to a stool at the island, his hand warm around my wrist. “Sit.”
I sit, more surprised by his tone - gentle, almost concerned - than by the command itself. He moves through the kitchen with the ease of someone who knows exactly where everything is, retrieving a first aid kit from a cabinet I hadn’t noticed.
“You don’t have to-”
“I know.” He opens the kit, pulls out antiseptic and bandages. “Hold still.”
The antiseptic stings, and I suck in a breath. His eyes flick to my face, checking, then return to his work. His fingers are careful, precise, cleaning the cut with more gentleness than I expected from hands that large.
“You’re good at this,” I hear myself say.
“I’ve had practice.”
“Accidents?”
“Something like that.” He doesn’t elaborate. The bandage wraps around my finger, snug but not too tight. “There. You’ll live.”
But he doesn’t let go of my hand.
His thumb strokes across my palm. Once. Twice. A gentle pressure that could be accidental, could be deliberate, could be something in between.
I feel my pulse racing under his fingers. See the moment he registers it, the way his eyes darken slightly.
“Your heart is pounding,” he says quietly.
“I cut myself. It startled me.”
“Is that all?”
The question hangs in the air between us. I should lie. Should pull my hand away, thank him for the bandage, retreat to my room and the safety of solitude.
“No,” I whisper. “That’s not all.”
His thumb stills against my palm. For one long, breathless moment, I think he might pull me closer. Might close the distance between us and do something neither of us can take back.
Instead, he releases my hand and steps back.
“Be more careful,” he says, his voice gruff. “I won’t always be awake to patch you up.”
Then he’s gone, disappearing into the shadows of the house, leaving me alone in the dark kitchen with a bandaged finger and a heart that won’t stop pounding.
I stay on the stool for a long time, pressing my uninjured hand against my chest, feeling my pulse slowly return to normal.
The kettle has gone cold. I never made my tea.
But sleep, when it finally comes, is filled with dreams of gentle hands and moonlit skin and eyes the color of winter storms.
***
True to his word, Jarec is at breakfast the next morning.
I stop in the doorway of the dining room, surprised despite myself. He’s seated at the head of the table, newspaper spread before him, coffee steaming at his elbow. He looks up when I enter, and something in his expression shifts - not quite a smile, but close.
“You came,” I say, then immediately feel foolish for stating the obvious.
“I said I would.”
I take my seat, and for once, the place setting across from his is occupied. Sarah brings my coffee without being asked, and there’s a warmth in her eyes that wasn’t there before.
We eat in silence at first, but it’s different from the silences that came before. Less hostile. More… waiting. Like we’re both trying to figure out what comes next.
“I wanted to apologize,” he says finally, setting down his coffee cup. “For last night.”
“For bandaging my finger?”
“For leaving the way I did. Abruptly. Without-” He stops, seems to search for words. “Without saying what I should have said.”
My heart does something complicated in my chest. “What should you have said?”
He’s quiet for a moment, staring into his coffee like it holds answers.
“I don’t know. That’s the problem. I’ve never been good at…
this. At talking. At being present with someone.
” He looks up, meets my eyes. “My father wasn’t around much.
My mother is - well. You’ll meet her eventually.
She’s not exactly a model for emotional availability. ”
It’s more than he’s ever told me about himself. More than I expected him to share.
“I wasn’t around people much either,” I offer. “Growing up. It was just me and my father, and he worked a lot. I learned to be alone. I’m not sure I ever learned how to be with someone.”
“So we’re both disasters.”
“Apparently.” I take a sip of my coffee. “But at least we’re disasters who can eat breakfast together.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. Not quite a smile, but the closest I’ve seen from him.
“It’s a start,” he agrees.
We finish our meal in companionable quiet, and when he leaves for the office, he pauses at the door.
“Tonight,” he says. “Dinner. I’ll be here.”
It’s still not much. Still barely anything at all.
But it’s a start.