Chapter One #3
When she ended the call, she didn’t look at me right away. She stood there for a moment, her breathing steadying, her posture shifting as she pulled herself back together piece by piece. When she finally turned, there was nothing left of that softness. The warmth was gone.
“You were saying something,” she said, her voice even now, almost indifferent.
I studied her in silence for a long moment, my gaze fixed on her, refusing to shift, letting the jealousy I kept off my face settle into something colder beneath the surface.
“Who was that?” I asked, the restraint in my tone costing more than I let on.
She held my gaze without flinching.
“That,” she said, sliding her phone back into her coat pocket, “doesn’t fucking concern you.”
The possessiveness that had never fully left me sharpened with uncomfortable clarity, no longer reckless as it had once been, but controlled and far more dangerous because of it.
“Your baby, huh?” I said slowly.
Her chin lifted slightly.
“Yes.”
The confirmation was simple.
Mine was not.
She gathered the fallen papers slowly, stacking them with the same composure she had displayed on stage, restoring order to the scattered pages as though nothing in the last several minutes had disrupted her equilibrium.
When she rose, the version of her that had answered the phone was gone entirely.
What stood in front of me now was restraint shaped into discipline.
“As you can see, Professor Stone,” she said, her tone formal, stripped of tremor, “a lot of things changed.”
She held my gaze without softness.
“I changed. You changed.”
Her voice carried no accusation now, only a calmness that left no room for denial. “I’m not that naive girl anymore.”
The words were not defensive, they struck with the weight of a truth she had already made peace with and no longer needed to explain.
“We should go our separate ways,” she continued, adjusting the strap of her bag over her shoulder with measured calm. “As before.”
Before.
The word landed with cruelty.
“You can return to your fiancée, or your wife, or whatever arrangement you’ve constructed for yourself. I neither know nor particularly care.”
The indifference in that sentence was impossible to miss.
“I will return to mine.”
Mine.
The ownership in her phrasing struck deeper than the earlier phone call. For a second I said nothing, because anger required control if it was to be effective, and the control I possessed now was far more dangerous than the volatility I once carried. She stepped to move past me.
“No,” I said.
She did not stop. “Edwina!”
Her hand brushed the edge of my coat as she attempted to pass.
“Fuck no!”
The words were low, rough, stripped of polish.
She paused then, caught by the tone even if she hadn’t meant to stop. I moved in front of her again, blocking her path and forcing her attention, leaving only a breath of space between us.
“I found you five years later,” I said, the restraint in my voice thinning into something darker and far less civil. “Do you honestly believe I am going to watch you walk away again?”
Her expression hardened.
“This is not about you wanting something,” she replied evenly. “This is about me choosing not to.”
The calm in her delivery only sharpened the aggression rising in mine.
“You think this is a coincidence?” I asked, my voice dropping, controlled and edged with a feral sharpness. “You think this is fate playing a joke and I’m just going to nod politely and disappear back to Washington like some obedient ex-lover?”
A humorless breath left me.
“I spent five fucking years trying to bury you,” I continued, the curse leaving me without apology. “Five years building a life that was supposed to look stable, to convince everyone, including myself, that I was over it.”
I held her gaze.
“It didn’t work.”
Silence filled the corridor again, heavier now, irreversible.
“You can’t decide this alone,” my voice softer, but far more dangerous. “You walked away once. That was your choice. But do not stand here and tell me I am expected to accept it again.”
“That is exactly what I am telling you,” she answered.
Then she stepped around me. This time I did not block her.
Control meant knowing when to hold and when to calculate.
She walked down the corridor without turning back, her posture upright, measured, unwavering, until she disappeared around the corner and the echo of her footsteps dissolved into the distant hum of the congress.
The space she left behind felt colder than London ever had. I remained there for several seconds, staring at the empty corridor, allowing the reality to settle without rushing after her, because chasing her impulsively would only repeat the mistakes of the past.
Five years ago she had vanished. London was no longer temporary.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and opened the confirmation email for my return flight scheduled for the following morning. Then I canceled it.If she believed I would let her disappear again, she had underestimated the man I had become. I was not leaving London.
Not now.
Not while she was here.