CHAPTER THIRTY #3
My hand rises instinctively but stops before reaching her waist. Isabella notices the hesitation, takes my wrist, and guides my hand to her body.
Only then do I hold her.
The kiss changes. Five years of anger, longing, desire, memory, and guilt find space between our bodies.
Isabella parts her lips, and I lose my breath when her hand reaches the back of my neck.
I draw her closer, keeping one part of my mind fixed on the only thing that matters: Isabella chose this kiss, and she must remain free to choose everything that comes after it.
When my fingers begin moving up her back, I slow them. She understands the question I do not need to ask, presses closer, and threads her fingers through my hair.
The office, the reports, and the investigation disappear. For several minutes, our bodies find paths they still remember, although we are no longer the people we were five years ago. Back then, her trust felt permanent; now every gesture has to respect everything that was broken.
Isabella is the first to pull away. Both of us are breathing as though we have been running.
She rests her forehead against mine.
“Shit.”
“I agree.”
A small laugh touches her lips but vanishes almost immediately.
“I should say that was a mistake.”
“Say it if that is what you believe.”
She does not move completely away. Her fingers remain closed around the front of my shirt.
“I want to go upstairs with you.”
For a moment, I cannot answer.
Isabella notices my hesitation and raises her face.
“Don’t look at me as though I’m going to break.”
“I don’t think you’ll break. I only don’t want to assume anything.”
“Then listen to me. I want to go to your room, but tomorrow this cannot become an obligation, a promise, or proof that we have reconciled.”
Every part of me wants to turn this night into a future, but that desire belongs to me, not to her.
“I will not turn your choice into a debt.”
She studies me, searching for a qualification.
“Can you do that?”
“I will have to.”
We go upstairs in silence. In the corridor, Isabella stops outside her own bedroom and looks at the door before continuing toward the third floor.
What happens between us is neither a conquest nor a reward. We are two people entering a memory through bodies that still know the way, even though our hearts have no idea where they will arrive.
Undressing Isabella requires more self-control than any negotiation I have ever faced.
There are small scars I do not know and subtle changes left by pregnancy, motherhood, and time.
I want to ask about all of them, grieve the years when I was absent, and tell her that she remains the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, but I do not turn her body into an investigation or the night into a confession.
I simply pay attention.
When tears fill her eyes during a kiss, I stop.
“They’re memories,” she explains, holding my face before I can withdraw. “Not regret.”
I wait for Isabella to close the distance again.
There is tenderness mixed with desire, caution tangled with familiarity.
At times, it feels as though we never spent a night apart; at others, every touch reveals the scale of the years we lost. I nearly tell her I love her, but keep the words inside.
She already knows what I feel and does not need to carry it while she is still trying to understand her own emotions.
Later, Isabella rests her head on my chest and falls asleep.
For a while, I allow myself to remain still, breathing in the scent of her hair and feeling the weight of her body against mine. I do not think about the contract, the divorce, or how I might persuade her to stay. I let the moment exist without attempting to convert it into possession.
When she wakes about twenty minutes later, her body becomes tense. I do not tighten my arms around her or pretend to remain asleep.
She sits up, finds the clothes scattered around the room, and begins dressing.
“I’m going back to my room.”
The words hurt more than they should, but I only nod.
“All right.”
Isabella looks at me while buttoning her shirt.
“You’re disappointed.”
“I am.”
“But you aren’t going to ask me to stay.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you want to leave.”
She closes her eyes for a moment.
“Don’t make this easy.”
“I’m not trying to make anything easy. I simply don’t believe you owe me the rest of the night because you chose to enter this room.”
Silence stretches between us while she finishes dressing. I want to ask her to stay, wrap my body around hers, and wake beside her, but any request would carry a weight Isabella does not yet want to bear.
At the door, she turns back.
“Good night, Alexander.”
“Good night, Isabella.”
After she leaves, I remain in bed with her perfume still lingering in the sheets. My heart tries to turn twenty minutes of sleep into a promise about the future, but I refuse to allow it.
This is the first time in five years that I have slept with Isabella. It may also be the first time I have fully understood that intimacy is not measured only by what happens when someone chooses to enter our room.
It is measured by what we do when that person decides to leave.