Chapter 29 Adaline
Adaline
The board game ends the way the best nights do, without anyone keeping score, and no one quite ready for it to be over.
Aunt Jane declares victory for the third time in a row, even though she definitely cheated twice, and Mrs. Lane pretends she didn’t see it. Liam groans dramatically and drops his head onto the table like he’s been personally wronged by the universe.
I laugh. A laugh that surprises me with how easy it comes, and the sound feels foreign in my own throat, like it belongs to someone else.
Someone lighter than I’ve been in years.
Hunter sits at the edge of it all, not loud, not trying, just…
there. When Aunt Jane makes a comment about Liam’s “tragic inability to accept defeat,” Hunter’s mouth twitches like he’s trying not to smile.
He doesn’t look at me when he does it, but I see it anyway.
I see everything now, and I don’t know what to do with it.
This doesn’t feel like employment. It doesn’t feel like a job I took to disappear.
It feels like a place I’ve been quietly stitched into, thread by thread, moment by moment, until I finally feel like I belong.
And him.
Hunter Rexon, in a faded sweater with his sleeves pushed up, leaning back in his chair as if he perfectly belongs in a room full of warmth.
As if he isn’t the storm I once mistook for danger.
My gaze catches on him and holds.
He looks up like he felt it, and for a second, our eyes lock.
No words.
Just a quiet line drawn between us. Something shared. Something understood.
My heart does that thing it’s been doing lately, an annoying flutter that makes me feel like a teenager again. Like someone has tipped my entire body slightly off balance.
I look away first, because the moment feels too intimate to survive.
Because the truth presses against the inside of my ribs, relentless and slow.
I might be falling for him.
Not the cold man who said no with a voice like steel.
But the man underneath.
The one who ran into a storm for me. The one who has been silently giving without asking.
The one whose hands trembled when he thought I wouldn’t notice.
The realization creeps in like sunrise, quiet, inevitable, leaving nowhere to hide.
And it terrifies me.
Because falling for Hunter doesn’t feel like a crush I can laugh off or a distraction I can survive.
It feels deep.
Real and impossibly irreversible.
It feels like stepping onto thin ice with my arms wide open.
My chest tightens every time Hunter looks at me, whenever his hand brushes mine. Or the way he says my name like it’s something he’s trying not to ruin.
Eventually, the night winds down. Liam is sent home with a teasing threat from Aunt Jane that if he “forgets to visit” next weekend, she’ll show up at his school and embarrass him in front of his friends.
Mrs. Lane starts gathering plates with the quiet efficiency of someone who can end a night with a single look.
Aunt Jane kisses my cheek and tells me she’s “off to beauty sleep,” then winks, heat rushing to my face.
“You two don’t stay up too late,” she says, gaze flicking between Hunter and me, as if she can see something I’m still trying to pretend isn’t happening.
“We won’t,” I say quickly, too quickly.
Hunter clears his throat. “Goodnight, Aunt Jane.”
She hums like she’s satisfied, then disappears down the hall.
Hunter gets up to pick up the plates while I pick up some of the board game pieces Liam forgot to put away before he left.
Mrs. Lane shoos Hunter away from the table with a gentle scold about leaving dishes where they are because “some of us have routines.”
He wishes me good night and retreats toward his office without looking back.
I linger in the livingroom for a moment after everyone leaves, letting the quiet settle. The mansion feels different tonight, less imposing, more… lived-in. The hall lights are dim. The air smells faintly like clean linen and whatever Mrs. Lane uses on the wood floors.
And for once, the silence doesn’t feel lonely.
It feels like an exhale.
My phone rings. Rachael’s name flashes on the screen, and relief loosens something in my chest before I even answer.
“Hey,” I say.
“Oh, good,” she says immediately. “I’ve been dying to talk to you. I was in Hawaii visiting my parents, trying not to worry every five minutes.”
I smile, sinking onto the couch. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you.”
“Your message was a lifesaver,” she says. “And—I have news.”
My stomach tightens.
“Connor is in serious legal trouble,” she says. “That hospital case finally moved forward. And after the fundraiser? Every lie he told came out.”
I close my eyes, relief rushing through me so fast it makes me dizzy. “So… he’s done?”
“Very,” Rachael says. “He’s busy trying to save his own reputation. You are officially off his radar.”
My shoulders sag. “Thank God,” I whisper.
And then—unexpectedly—I think of Hunter. The way he stood beside me without questions. Without needing explanations. The quiet certainty of knowing I didn’t have to carry everything alone.
“Now,” Rachael says, voice turning sly, “for the important part. What’s going on between you and Hunter Rexon? Don’t change the subject—I’ve seen the gala photos.”
“There is nothing going on,” I say too fast.
She laughs. “Sure.”
“I know how to get around that NDA,” she adds. “I could just happen to pass through Rose Hills for… research purposes.”
I roll my eyes, smiling despite myself. “You’re impossible.”
“I just need to see it with my own eyes,” she says. “The gossip blogs are saying he punched Connor. Be honest—has Hunter already fallen for you?”
“Rachael, stop,” I say, laughing despite myself.
“Fine,” she relents. “I’ll wait until you’re ready to tell me.”
Her voice softens, and the conversation drifts to safer territory—her work, my nursing exams, things that don’t require me to name whatever is happening between Hunter and me.
When we hang up, the quiet returns.
It feels settled.
Before I head upstairs to my room, I realize my throat is dry, and my stomach is doing that hollow thing it does when my body finally remembers it exists.
So I turn toward the kitchen.
The light is on.
Mrs. Lane stands at the counter with her back to me, hair pinned neatly, moving with that calm competence that makes me feel like she could run an army if she wanted. A cutting board sits in front of her, along with bread on a plate with a knife.
She’s making something.
“Mrs. Lane?” I say quietly.
She glances over her shoulder, not startled in the slightest. “Adaline. Still here ?”
“I was just… getting water.”
“Mm.” She turns back to the counter. “I’m making Hunter’s sandwich.”
That stops me.
“Hunter’s sandwich?” I repeat.
“Yes.” Her tone is casual, like this is as ordinary as breathing. “He eats late when he’s been working too much. Which is often.”
I hesitate, then step closer. The kitchen smells warm, bread and butter, and something savory. The comforting scent settles in my chest.
“You do that every night?” I ask.
Mrs. Lane shrugs slightly. “Not every. But most.”
She pauses, then adds, almost like she can’t help herself, “He forgets to eat when his mind is… full.”
I swallow.
I watch her hands steady, practiced, and I find myself picturing Hunter in his office, shoulders tense, jaw tight, stomach empty because he refuses to stop long enough to be human.
Mrs. Lane reaches for a jar, then says, as if she’s talking about the weather, “He paid for the roof repairs on Mrs. Halloway’s bookstore, though he made Mark sign the paperwork so it wouldn’t trace back to him. He’s always careful that his name stays out of it.”
“Why would he do that?” I whisper.
Mrs. Lane gives a quiet, knowing hum. “Because he cares. He just doesn’t like the town knowing he does.”
She continues, voice calm, as she glances at me again. “He doesn’t want recognition.”
Like kindness is something he can only give if nobody can hold it against him. I suddenly see him not as hard, but as… tired.
Tired of being misunderstood.
Tired of trying to prove himself to people who decided years ago what they wanted to believe.
Before she can continue, I step forward. “Let me.”
Mrs. Lane lifts a brow. “Let you what?”
“Make it.” My voice comes out firmer than I intended. “I can make his sandwich.”
And then I add, “I’m hungry too.”
She studies me for a beat, sharp eyes, gentle face. Then her expression softens into something almost amused.
“All right,” she says, stepping aside. I wash my hands even though they’re already clean, because I need something to do with the nerves suddenly buzzing under my skin. Then I stand at the counter with the bread in front of me and the simple task feels… intimate.
Like I’m doing something that belongs to the inner circle of this house.
I layer the ingredients carefully, remembering the way he made that sandwich for me the night after the fundraiser. Realizing now that neither of us likes raw tomatoes.
When I’m done, I wrap it neatly and set it on the plate. Mrs. Lane watches me, then nods once.
I leave his in the fridge and take mine with me.
Mrs. Lane murmurs, “Goodnight, dear,” and returns to wiping the counter. The house is quieter now, the floorboards creaking softly beneath my steps. As I near Aunt Jane’s room, I hear it.
A voice.
Hunter. He’s reading.
The words are calm, patient, his voice is… tender.
I slow automatically, pausing just outside the half-closed door.
“He learned that what he fled was anger, not darkness—and she stayed,” he reads, his voice barely above a whisper, “knowing love would do the rest.”
I press my fingers lightly to the doorframe like I need to anchor myself.
This is the real Hunter, the one beneath the armor. The one I’m not supposed to want.
The one I’m already starting to.
I swallow hard, holding the plate in my hands, and I just stand there in the hallway with my chest aching and my pulse too fast, realizing the most dangerous truth of all.
He has taken over my heart, and maybe my soul.
I don’t think I can stop this.