Chapter 7
7
ANNA
T he next day, Charleston glistened in the heat as a slow, golden kind of warmth settled around the city like a lover’s touch, lazy and lingering.
The sun shone brightly across Verandelle’s open-air courtyard, spilling over ivy-covered brick walls. Somewhere behind me, a fountain murmured beneath the Spanish moss swaying in the breeze. A flute of rosé sparkled in the light beside my hand, untouched.
I was supposed to be socializing. Smiling. Getting to know my colleagues from the Charleston Philharmonic—these gracious Southern women who had carved out time and charm to welcome the new harpist in town over lunch.
But all I could think about was him.
Atlas.
God, I didn’t even know his last name.
I’d been intimate with a man whose surname I didn’t know. A man who’d looked at me like he could break me in half and then held me like he never would. Who kissed me like he was starving and left like it had cost him something.
He hadn’t said goodbye.
He hadn’t said anything.
Now I was sitting at a linen-draped table with three violists, a second violinist, and the assistant concertmaster, trying not to let the memory of his hands on my body make me lose focus every time someone said my name.
“Anna, honey, I was just saying,” came a voice thick with magnolias and mischief, “you can’t live in Charleston and not have at least a passing appreciation for grits and gossip.”
I blinked, dragging myself back to the table. Lindsey Crawford, the blonde violist from Birmingham, smiled at me from across the table, her ice-pale hair perfectly twisted into a French knot that somehow didn’t melt in the heat. She was effortlessly poised, draped in a soft yellow sundress and speaking with that lyrical Southern accent that made every sentence sound like it was being sung.
“I like the gossip,” I said, my lips tugging upward despite the ache in my chest. “Still working on the grits.”
That earned a round of laughs, and I relaxed a little.
The women were lovely—warm, curious, clearly trying to make me feel welcome—but there was an undercurrent here I couldn’t quite ignore. Something in the way they exchanged looks, in the way they asked polite questions with pointed undertones.
Charleston was beautiful, but beneath the Spanish moss and gas lamps, this city was built on legacy and power—and posturing. And nowhere did that come through more than in the arts.
The Philharmonic, I was learning, was just as much about politics as it was about performance.
“Verandelle always reminds me of Provence,” said another player, Marion, from the violin section. She gestured to the terra cotta pots filled with lavender lining the patio. “You just need the accordion player and the rainclouds.”
“I wouldn’t say no to a raincloud,” I muttered, blotting my forehead with a napkin. The Charleston sun was relentless.
Lindsey took a sip of her drink, then fixed those Southern belle eyes on me. “So. Word is you’re from Boston.”
“Born in Russia, actually,” I said, smoothing my napkin across my lap. “But I’ve lived in Boston most of my life.”
“Ooh, exotic.” Lindsey leaned in conspiratorially, her voice dropping just a note. “But you don’t sound Russian. Not at all.”
“My parents changed everything—name, language, everything—when we came here. Wanted me to have a clean slate.”
There was a pause. The other women listened politely, but the energy shifted. Just slightly.
Interesting.
I took a sip of my drink, letting the silence stretch a beat too long before changing the subject. “So, tell me the truth—how long before the gossip starts flying about the artist-in-residence?”
That got the laughs back.
“Oh, sweetie,” Lindsey said, tilting her sunglasses down. “It already has.”
The table tittered again, and I raised a brow. “Should I be worried?”
“Only if you’re sleeping with someone you shouldn’t be,” Marion chimed, smirking behind her glass.
My heart skipped.
I forced a tight smile. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Lindsey gave me a look. One I couldn’t quite read. “You and Eugene were engaged, weren’t you?”
God.
There it was.
I kept my expression calm. “We were. Past tense.”
“That’s what I heard.” Lindsey’s smile was sympathetic, but her words were razor sharp. “I’m sorry, sugar. That whole thing with Leah was just ... messy.”
Messy.
I clenched my jaw, nodding. “It was.”
“You didn’t hear it from me,” Lindsey went on, tracing a finger around the rim of her glass, “but she was bragging about it for months. Said Eugene promised her he’d end things last year before the holidays. Guess he forgot to mention that part to you.”
Something inside me flinched.
“I figured it out,” I said quietly. “Eventually.”
There was another beat of silence. The women shifted, clearly uncomfortable now that the conversation had edged too close to real pain.
I didn’t care.
Let them feel it.
I had survived humiliation, betrayal, and the death of a future I thought I wanted.
But I couldn’t shake last night. Couldn’t shake Atlas.
I hadn’t told anyone about him, of course. What would I even say? But the question had started needling at me the moment I woke up alone: Who was he, really?
I didn’t know his last name. He hadn’t told me. I hadn’t asked.
We’d shared bodies, breath, and heat, but not the basics. Not a phone number.
How the hell was I supposed to find him?
“I met someone,” I said suddenly, surprising even myself.
The table perked up like hounds catching a scent.
Lindsey’s brows rose. “Oh?”
“Just … someone. At Garrison Green. I don’t know his last name.”
“Ooooh, mystery man,” Marion sang. “That’s very Charleston of you.”
“I don’t even know how to find him again,” I admitted, fidgeting with the edge of my napkin. “It’s ... stupid.”
“Not stupid,” Lindsey said, voice gentler now. “But if it was Garrison Green? And he was in a tux? Girl, you better pray it wasn’t one of the Danes.”
I looked up sharply. “What?”
Lindsey laughed, but it was the kind of laugh that covered a whole lot of warning. “You know—the Dane brothers. Dominion Hall. Noah, Atlas, Ryker, Marcus, and the rest of them. Big money. Former military. Dangerous as hell and built like Greek gods. Nobody gets close. And if you do? You better know what you’re doing.”
My mouth went dry.
Atlas.
She said Atlas.
I sat still, every muscle going stiff as heat rushed up my spine.
She couldn’t mean?—
“Atlas Dane?” I said, my voice too soft.
Lindsey froze.
Her smile faltered. “You didn’t know?”
I felt the world tilt. Everything inside me slowed.
No. No, I hadn’t known.
I had been intimate with Atlas Dane. I let the weight of it settle.
Atlas. Dane.
Of course, that was his name.
It fit him perfectly. It sounded like command and control, like power wrapped in silence. Atlas, the one who carried the world. Wasn’t that what he felt like when he touched me? Like a man who could hold everything—me—without breaking. Like he had already broken, and rebuilt himself harder. Stronger. Quieter.
That name didn't belong to a man who faded into a crowd. It belonged to a man who stood above it. A man you didn’t approach—you were summoned. A man who didn’t kiss like it was a promise. He kissed like it was a claim.
And I’d let him take me. All of me.
He was nothing like anyone I’d ever touched.
Not like the polished musicians and paper-spined academics I’d dated.
Not like Eugene. Least of all Eugene.
Atlas was rough and quiet and feral beneath the skin.
I hadn’t been afraid. I’d been craving him.
Even now, sitting in a sun-dappled courtyard with rose petals and laughter all around me, I felt haunted. By his mouth. His hands. The heat of his body grinding into mine against stone.
I didn’t know what this was.
Obsession? Lust? Madness?
But I knew one thing with piercing certainty. I needed to see him again.
Lindsey blinked, realization dawning. “Oh, honey.”
The other women were silent now. Watching. Waiting.
I didn’t know what they saw on my face. Shock, maybe. Hunger, definitely. Regret wrapped in something far more dangerous.
To distract themselves—or maybe to give me a moment to breathe—Marion waved a manicured hand toward the soft green walls and iron scrollwork above us. “Charleston’s full of French influence, you know. You can see it in the architecture. Hear it in the names. Taste it.”
I nodded my agreement. As if on cue, our food arrived.
A row of polished servers wove through the courtyard, balancing porcelain plates and placing them down with a kind of practiced ceremony. In front of me, a delicate coquilles Saint-Jacques shimmered in its shell—seared scallops nestled in a creamy white wine sauce, topped with golden gratin and flecks of fresh thyme. It smelled like butter, sea salt, and decadence.
Lindsey had ordered the duck confit—the leg crisped to perfection, resting over a bed of haricots verts and garlic potatoes. Marion’s croque madame sat crowned with a perfectly fried egg, yolk glistening like a sun caught mid-sigh.
“We don’t get much of this back home in Birmingham,” Lindsey said, picking up her fork. “And oh, Lord, this is the good kind of sinful. The kind that makes you forget your manners. ”
“Or your morals,” Marion added, cutting into her sandwich with surgical precision.
I tried to laugh. It came out thin.
I took a bite of the scallops. They melted on my tongue, rich and indulgent.
It was different from Boston’s seafood—less briny, more decadent. Back home, everything was sharper, saltier, kissed with cold Atlantic wind and the kind of ruggedness that clung to every oyster shucked on a dock. You could taste the ocean in every bite up there.
But this?
This was silk. This was Lowcountry elegance. Butter and cream and thyme, warm instead of wild. Charleston’s seafood wasn’t trying to prove anything. It already knew it was irresistible.
I’d grown up on chowders, lobster rolls, and clams so fresh they snapped back when you touched them. But down here, it was all about hush, about coaxing flavor from quiet. It was sultry instead of bracing. Slow instead of sharp.
Like the city itself.
Like the man I couldn’t stop thinking about.
Who was he?
Not just in title or reputation, but in truth. In essence. And why hadn’t he told me?
“So … you don’t have a number? An email address?” Lindsey asked gently between bites, dabbing the corner of her mouth with her napkin.
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
She leaned back, her brow furrowed in thought. “Well, the Dane brothers aren’t exactly reachable through traditional means. Dominion Hall is practically locked down. You can’t just call up a switchboard.”
“Can’t I just …” I paused, my fork halfway to my mouth, “show up?”
That got a round of quiet laughter—less amused, more incredulous.
“Anna, dear,” Marion said with a smirk, “you don’t show up at Dominion Hall. You get invited. Or dragged in.”
“They’re like Southern royalty,” Lindsey added, twirling a piece of duck onto her fork. “Except way more intense. No press. No public appearances unless absolutely necessary. Half the city’s elite would sell their souls to get through those gates, and they still wouldn’t make it past the front lawn.”
I blinked. “So … how does anyone get to them?”
Marion shrugged. “Rumor is, if you really need to find them, you talk to Opal.”
“Opal?”
“Opal Norwood. Old lady runs an antique bookstore near Broad. Apparently she knows the family somehow. Friends with their mother, I think. Or … was. No one’s really sure if their mother is even still alive. But old Opal has a way of making things happen. Quietly.”
A strange shiver passed down my spine.
Atlas had vanished. And yet here I was, being handed a map.
“Where’s the shop?” I asked.
Lindsey grinned. “It’s called The Lantern Room. On Queen Street. Looks like something out of a gothic novel—dust, velvet, and candlelight. If anyone can get a message to him, it’s her.”
I nodded slowly, setting down my fork. My appetite was gone.
In its place, something sharper.
Purpose.
Because I’d walked away from Atlas Dane once. I wasn’t going to do it again.