Just The Two Of Us
The door shuts with a click that feels louder than it should, echoing through the empty hall like a gunshot.
Finally.
Three weeks. That’s what Kate called it—just three weeks. To her, it’s nothing. To me, it’s everything.
The house has always been too big, too quiet, but with her gone it’s different. Not empty—no, never empty. Not with Brooklyn still standing in my foyer, pretending she’s not trembling under the weight of me watching her.
She doesn’t move. Not right away. Like some part of her knows that walking away would be the smart thing to do, and some darker part wants to find out what happens if she stays frozen here with me.
Her eyes flicker up—emerald jewels, wary and stubborn. She has no idea how close she is to the edge.
I drag a hand down my jaw slowly, deliberately, because I need to do something other than grab her by the throat and pin her to the wall.
“Three weeks,” I murmur, mostly to myself.
Her brows pull together. “What?”
I look at her fully now, letting her see just a fraction of what I’ve been holding back. “That’s how long it’ll be before she’s back. Which means…” I step forward, closing the space between us by half, savouring the way her breath catches, “…you and I are alone.”
Colour rises in her cheeks, quick and guilty. “You make it sound like…”
“Like what?” I cut in, voice low, amused. “Like it’s dangerous? Like it’s wrong?”
Her lips part, but no words come out.
Exactly.
I smirk, sharp and humourless, and turn away before I do something irreversible. My pulse is a live wire under my skin, every instinct screaming at me to circle back, to stalk, to claim. But I can’t—not yet.
Not until she learns what being mine really means.
I walk toward the kitchen, forcing myself to move slowly, deliberately, a predator in no rush. “You should eat,” I throw over my shoulder. “Kate left enough food behind to feed an army.”
She doesn’t follow right away. I hear her shift, uncertain, torn between running and staying.
And it thrills me.
Because no matter what she chooses, I already know how this game ends.
She follows. Of course she does.
I don’t look back, but I can hear her—bare feet padding across the hardwood, hesitant, like she thinks the sound of her footsteps might give her away. As if I couldn’t sense her no matter what.
The kitchen feels different with her in it. Warmer. Charged. Like every surface, every piece of polished marble and steel is complicit in the fact that she shouldn’t be here with me—my daughter’s best friend, my assistant, the one woman I swore I wouldn’t touch again.
I open the fridge, taking my time. Let her stand in the doorway and watch me. She thinks she’s hidden, leaning against the frame, arms crossed tight like that’s armour.
“Hungry?” I ask, voice pitched casually, though there’s nothing casual about the way my shoulders tense, the way my body knows exactly where she is without turning around.
She doesn’t answer right away. I pull out the carton of eggs, the smoked salmon, and the good butter. Set them on the counter one by one, deliberately, letting the silence stretch.
Finally, her voice: “You already made breakfast this morning.”
I glance over my shoulder, catching the quick flush rising in her throat. “And?”
She lifts her chin, but her eyes won’t meet mine. “And…you don’t strike me as the type to play house.”
That earns her the smallest curve of my mouth. I step closer, crowding the space between her and the frame, not touching but close enough she feels it—close enough her breath stutters.
“I don’t play house,” I say quietly. “But I don’t let people into my house unless I want them here.”
Her pulse kicks under her skin, fast, frantic. She swallows hard, and I can see the thoughts firing behind her eyes—want and guilt, fear and defiance, all tangled up.
She tries to scoff, weak at best. “So what… I should feel lucky?”
“No,” I murmur, leaning in until my breath grazes her ear. “You should feel warned.”
Her body goes still, caught between bristling and shivering.
I straighten, step back like nothing just happened, and crack an egg into the pan. The sizzle fills the air, sharp and loud, a cheap cover for the fact I’m still watching her in the reflection of the window.
She hasn’t moved. She’s biting her lip, caught up in whatever war is playing out inside her chest.
And I know, with a bone-deep certainty that borders on sick—this summer will ruin her.
And I’ll be the one holding the match.
The egg hisses in the pan, yolk bleeding gold across white, but it’s not the sound that fills the room—it’s her breathing. Soft, uneven. She’s still there in the doorway, and I know she hasn’t decided whether to leave or step closer.
I don’t help her.
Instead, I drop the spatula, slice the egg in half, and let the smell rise, rich and heavy. Then I glance back, deliberately slow, pinning her with nothing but a look.
She startles as if she’s been caught doing something filthy.
Her arms uncross, falling stiffly to her sides. She tries to pretend it’s nothing. “You’re…making enough for two?”
I let the silence stretch, my lips curling into something that isn’t quite a smile. “Depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether you’re brave enough to sit at my table.”
The way she swallows, the way her throat flexes, makes something sharp coil low in me. She doesn’t move, not right away, and I don’t let her off the hook. I keep cooking as if she’s invisible, as if her choice doesn’t matter at all, even though it’s the only thing that matters in this moment.
Finally, she pushes off the frame and crosses the kitchen. Barefoot, hair mussed, her mouth set in that stubborn little line that makes me want to tear it apart. She slides into a chair, every movement stiff with defiance, but I can see the tremor in her fingers when she rests them on the table.
Good girl.
I drop the plate in front of her—eggs, salmon, toast cut clean and neat. The kind of thing no one notices I do. The kind of thing no one but her will ever be allowed to see.
She stares down at it, then up at me, eyes flashing. “What is this? Some kind of performance?”
My head tilts, my gaze dragging slowly over her face, her bare shoulders, the imprint of sheets still on her skin. “If I wanted to put on a performance, Brooklyn, you wouldn’t be able to sit down right now.”
Her inhale is sharp. She grips the fork tighter.
I move back to my side of the counter, fixing my own plate, acting as if my words didn’t just hang heavy between us.
She takes a bite—small, testing. Her tongue darts out to catch a crumb at the corner of her mouth. My jaw flexes. I look away.
But I don’t miss her mutter, so low I almost have to imagine it: “You’re impossible.”
I drag my gaze back to her, letting the heat in it burn through the distance. “And yet,” I say softly, “you’re still here.”
Her cheeks flush, and for a second she looks like she might throw the fork at me—or herself into my lap.
The knife-edge is the only place I want her.
So I let the moment dangle, cruel and sweet, while the house stays too quiet without Kate, and Brooklyn keeps trying to eat around the fact she’s mine already, whether she admits it or not.
I watch her chew, watch her throat work the way my hand did last night. She tries to eat neatly, carefully, as if she can make this normal.
She should know better by now.
I lean against the counter, arms crossed, letting the silence sharpen between us until she squirms. “Finish your plate.”
Her fork stalls midair. “I am.”
“No.” My voice drops, the kind that coils around her spine and pulls. “You’re picking. Nibbling like a little bird. I said finish it.”
Her chin lifts. That defiance again. That beautiful, suicidal streak. “You can’t tell me—”
I cut her off with nothing more than a look. Dark, steady, unflinching. Her words choke themselves off.
That’s better.
I step forward, close enough that the heat of me bleeds against her skin. I take her fork from her hand, stab a piece of salmon, and bring it up to her lips.
“Open.”
She hesitates. Not because she doesn’t want to obey, but because she does. Because her body betrays her before her pride will. I tilt the fork just enough that the butter glistens down, threatening to stain her dress.
She parts her lips. Good girl. I slide the bite past her mouth, watch her chew, watch her glare up at me with eyes that beg even while they spit fire.
I don’t move back. I rest my hand flat on the table beside her plate, caging her in, my shadow covering her food. “Here’s how this works, Brooklyn. You eat. Every bite. No matter what I do. No matter what I say. You finish your plate.”
Her breath hitches. Her fork trembles when she picks it up again.
I lean down, mouth near her ear, voice rough silk. “And if you drop so much as a crumb, if you stop before I say you’re done—I’ll drag you across this table and remind you exactly who you belong to.”
She shivers, stabs a bite of toast, and forces it past her lips like she can out-stubborn me.
I chuckle low. “That’s one.”
Her brows pinch. She swallows. “One what?”
“One bite. Let’s see how many you can manage before I make you forget your own name.”
Her throat works, but she doesn’t stop eating.
Exactly the way I want her—defiant, trembling, and mine.
She cuts another piece, hands trembling just enough for me to notice. She thinks she’s hiding it behind the scrape of her knife, behind the perfect way she lifts her chin when she chews.
She doesn’t realise I see everything.
“Good girl,” I murmur, letting the words drip between us like honey and poison. Her fork halts, caught midair, like praise itself is more dangerous than my threats.
She sets her jaw and takes the bite anyway.
I smirk. “That’s two.”
Her eyes flick up, sharp as broken glass. “Stop counting.”
I lean down, lips brushing the shell of her ear. “Make me.”
Her breath stutters, but she stabs another bite like she’s trying to wound the plate instead of me. I watch her chew slowly and stubbornly, and I count louder this time.
“Three.”