Chapter Sixteen
The carriage ride was nothing like she expected.
No crackling tension.
No frantic, breathless awareness.
No countdown humming between them like a struck wire.
Just silence—quiet, warm, laden with the weight of the night.
Elias sat beside her, not touching, but near enough that she could feel the calm steadiness of his breathing. The heated urgency that had driven their last weeks—every glance, every brush of skin—had been replaced by something deeper, almost solemn.
He looked out the window for a long while, then said, very softly, “No one has spoken to her like that. Not for me. Not ever.”
She didn’t answer. She simply folded her hand into his, lacing their fingers together.
He tightened his grip—not possessive, not desperate this time, but grateful. Grounded.
By the time the carriage rolled to a stop in front of Rothwest House, neither had spoken another word, yet more seemed to have been said in that silence than in all their arguments and flirtations combined.
Morrison opened the door.
Elias helped her out. His touch was gentle, almost hesitant, as though she were something precious. Something beloved.
Inside, the lamps were still lit. The house was warm, welcoming. And for the first time, Celine felt truly home.
They mounted the stairs slowly, side by side, not rushing, not avoiding. Outside her bedroom door, they paused—out of habit, out of memory, out of the strange reverence that now wrapped around them both.
“This is it,” she whispered. “Thirty days.”
“Yes.” He looked at her, and she had never seen such tenderness in his eyes. “It is.”
She waited.
Any moment now, she told herself. He would take her hand. He would unlock her door. He would say it was time.
But he didn’t.
He lifted her hand instead and pressed his lips to her knuckles—not with hunger, but with something that felt like a vow.
“Celine,” he murmured, “tonight… I don’t trust myself to touch you the way I feel for you now.”
Her breath stilled. “Elias—”
“It isn’t restraint,” he said quickly. “Not lack of want. Goodness knows I want you more than air.” He exhaled softly, heavily. “But tonight, what I feel isn’t desire. Not just desire. It’s…” He searched for the word. Found one that shook him. “More.”
She felt it too. This wasn’t the urgent, hungry fire that had tormented them for weeks—this was gentler, steadier. Frightening in a different way.
A beginning, not an end.
“If I take you tonight,” he said, voice low and aching, “I will not be thinking as a man who won a wager. Or ended an agreement. I will be thinking…” He paused, throat working. “As a man giving himself to the woman he… cherishes.”
Her heart fluttered painfully. “And that is wrong?”
“No.” He shook his head. “It is too right. Too important for tonight. For exhaustion and gossip and the wreckage of old wounds.”
She stepped closer. “Elias—”
He touched her cheek with the back of his fingers, so lightly it made her shiver.
“I want our first night to be chosen,” he whispered. “Not simply allowed. Not the end of a bargain. I want it to be the beginning of us.”
Her eyes stung with something dangerously close to tears.
“So do I,” she whispered.
He dipped his forehead to hers, their breaths mingling. For a moment, they simply stood there, suspended in a closeness that was almost holy.
Then he drew back.
“Goodnight, Celine.”
“Goodnight, Elias.”
She entered her room. Closed the door.
On the other side, she heard him pause. Heard him rest his hands against the wood, his breath catching ever so faintly.
Then footsteps. Slow. Steady. Not fleeing desire this time—only protecting it.
Protecting her.
Celine touched the door with trembling fingers.
She had thought the greatest proof of his want would be when he finally reached for her.
But now she knew—
The greatest proof was that tonight, he didn’t.
And that changed everything.