Chapter Fourteen
Isabella
My office felt smaller after hours, the hum of servers and other office equipment creating a grotesque mechanical lullaby.
Colton’s knock was soft, almost hesitant. When I looked up, my breath caught slightly. He stood in my doorway, jacket discarded, sleeves rolled to expose forearms that showed the results of his training. But it was the vulnerability in his expression that held me, something raw and unguarded that I rarely saw during daylight hours.
“You need to eat,” he said, his voice gentler than usual.
“I’m fine,” I started to say, but my stomach betrayed me with an audible growl.
“Have you eaten today?” He moved into my office with that contained strength I was still getting used to. “Not coffee. Not whatever snacks you keep in your desk.”
I hadn’t. The realization must have shown on my face because something softened in his eyes.
“Come on.” He reached for my coat before I could protest. “I know a place.”
I should have said no. Everything between us felt increasingly complicated. But watching him hold my coat, seeing that rare gentleness in his expression—I found myself standing, letting him help me into my wool peacoat. His hands lingered slightly at my shoulders, and heat bloomed where he touched me.
The restaurant occupied an old townhouse, nothing but dark wood and warm, romantic lighting. The ma?tre d’ greeted Colton with familiar warmth, leading us to a corner booth where shadows dissolved the day’s hard angles. “The ‘82 Bordeaux is drinking beautifully,” the waiter suggested. “I know you will enjoy it.”
Colton nodded, not bothering with the wine list.
“You’re here often enough that the waiter knows your wine preferences?” I asked after the man left.
He was quiet for a moment, studying the stem of his water glass. “More lately. Sometimes paperwork and silence make poor company.” His voice dropped lower. “And sometimes home feels too empty. Too quiet.”
The admission seemed to surprise him as much as it did me. Colton never showed weakness, never revealed the cracks in his armor. But here, in the intimate lighting of this hidden gem of a restaurant, something was shifting between us.
The wine arrived—deep garnet catching the candlelight. I watched him taste it with practiced ease, noting the changes in him. The new strength in his hands. The way he filled space differently now.
“Your brother taught you about wine?” I asked, curious about this version of him.
“Only recently—since he started the vineyard.”
“Do you have other family?”
His expression clouded slightly. “Our mother died of cancer when we were six. And now Dad...” He took a careful sip, the loss still fresh. Even though he looked away briefly, I could see how deeply it wounded him. “He just passed earlier this year. Cancer again. Like some cruel family legacy.”
I found myself reaching across the table, covering his hand with mine. The contact surprised us both, but he turned his palm up, letting our fingers intertwine.
“Cooper handled it differently than me,” he continued, thumb brushing absently over my knuckles. “When the medical bills got bad, he started running with Steele—art heists, smuggling, anything to help pay for treatments. I tried staying legitimate at first, but...”
“But you couldn’t let your brother carry it alone.”
“No.” His smile was sad. “Law school loans were crushing me. Creditors calling constantly. So, I started helping Cooper, handling the financial side when his business partner, Steele, left. Laundering money, creating paper trails...”
“You were both just trying to survive.”
“Cooper found freedom in it, somehow. Breaking rules became his way of fighting back against everything we couldn’t control.” Colton met my eyes then, and the intensity of his gaze made my breath catch. “But I went the other way. Needed structure. Order. Something I could hold onto when everything else was chaos.”
“Until his wife found him?” I asked, understanding dawning as the stories I’d pieced together merged into a complete picture.
“She saved him. Showed him better ways to find that freedom he craved.” His fingers tightened on mine. “The right person can do that—help you find a different kind of freedom. A better way to live.”
Heat crept up my neck at the implication. I understood what he wasn’t saying—that maybe I could be that person for him. That maybe I already was, challenging him while giving him new reasons to trust.
The waiter’s arrival broke the charged moment between us. We ordered, pasta for me, steak for him, and I found myself studying him in the candlelight, seeing past the controlled exterior to someone who’d built walls not from coldness, but from loss.
“Tell me about your father,” he said after a moment, as if sensing my thoughts. “What was he like before...”
“Before they killed him?” The words hurt less here, in this intimate space with him. “He was...brilliant. Passionate about art, about truth, about justice. I grew up in his study, watching him examine brushstrokes under magnifiers, testing pigments, tracing provenance through the centuries.” The memory ached, but sweetly. “He made it feel like solving mysteries. Like uncovering buried treasure.”
“You must miss him terribly.”
“Every day.” I met his eyes, finding unexpected understanding. “Everyone accepted the heart attack story. It was a simple explanation for an older man’s sudden death.”
“And you took his job…why?”
“To understand everything.” My hands clenched around my wine glass. “To finish his legacy…to be close to his memory…but now…now I’m scared about what I’m uncovering.”
Colton’s entire hand now covered mine, his palm warm and steady. His fingers curved around mine naturally, like they belonged there. “We’ll find the truth,” he said. “What he discovered, what they’re hiding, we’ll bring it into the light.”
I should have pulled away. Should have remembered that caring made you vulnerable. Instead, I turned my hand under his, bringing our fingers back together.
“Your…physical transformation…” I said, needing to shift focus before emotions overwhelmed me. “What really started it?”
“Three drunk bankers outside The Wolseley.” His thumb traced absent patterns on my wrist, making it hard to concentrate. “I couldn’t defend myself. Needed waiters to intervene. Cooper would have handled it easily, but I just stood there, frozen. Useless.”
“That’s why you found a trainer?”
“Yes, his name is Stryker. I was tired of needing rescue. Tired of being the brother who only fought with words.” His hand tightened fractionally on mine. “Tired of feeling helpless.”
“You’re not helpless.”
Something heated flashed across his face, and the air between us felt electric. Each stroke of his thumb on my skin sent sparks up my arm.
The waiter appeared with our food, but Colton kept his hand on mine, ignoring his meal, watching me eat one-handed.
“Tell me about growing up in the countryside,” he said, voice rougher than before. “What was it like, surrounded by art and beauty?”
“Not as romantic as it sounds. Father’s estate was more of a laboratory than a gallery—paintings in various states of authentication, technical equipment everywhere. I learned more about pigment chemistry than princess stories.”
“No fairytales?”
“Oh, there were stories. About forgers so skilled they fooled experts. About lost masterpieces found in attics. About paintings that changed history.” I smiled at the memory. “Father could make art feel alive, like each piece held secrets waiting to be discovered.”
“You have that same passion when you work.” His voice dwindled to a murmur. “I’ve watched you examine pieces—completely focused, like nothing else exists.”
“You watch me work?”
I thought perhaps I detected a tiny bit of color touch his cheeks, but it was gone so quickly I must have imagined it. “I notice things. Details. It’s part of being a lawyer.”
“Is that all it is?”
The question hung between us, dangerous and tempting. His eyes met mine across the table, and for a moment I saw something raw and wanting. Then something darker flickered in his expression—not desire, but almost like fear. He pulled back slightly, removing his hand from mine.
“It’s late,” I said reluctantly, understanding he needed the escape. “We should go.”
Outside, London’s rain had stopped, leaving everything gleaming under streetlights. The air felt cleaner, fresher. Full of possibility. He walked me to my car, close enough that our shoulders brushed occasionally. Each accidental touch sent electricity through me.
“Thank you,” I said when we reached my car. “For dinner. For listening.”
He was close enough that I could smell his cologne, could see the caramel undertones in his brown eyes. For a heartbeat, I thought he might kiss me. I wanted him to kiss me. His eyes dropped to my mouth, and I felt myself sway slightly closer.
Instead, he stepped back, that shadow crossing his face again. “Be safe.”
I watched him walk away, his shoulders straight despite the hour. Remembering how his voice softened when speaking of his parents. How he’d transformed himself from someone who needed rescue into someone who did the rescuing.
Something was shifting between us, as inevitable as tide and time. Something that made my heart race and my hands shake.
The drive home passed in a blur of streetlights and memories. His hands. His voice. The way he looked at me like he saw everything I tried to hide. The way he made me feel less alone with my own ghosts.
For the first time since my father died, I let myself imagine trusting someone again. Let myself feel something beyond professional distance and carefully maintained boundaries.
Even if trust meant risking my heart.
But that was tomorrow’s concern. Tonight there was just this: The memory of his hand in mine. The warmth in his eyes. The way he’d made me feel seen. Understood. Real.