Chapter 3 The Storm
The storm hit before she could reach him.
Vesper had the photograph in one hand and the note in the other when the first gust slammed against the house hard enough to rattle the windows. She stopped in the upstairs hallway. The lights flickered. Outside, the sky had turned the color of a bruise. Purple-black. Swollen.
The radio on the hallway table crackled. A voice she recognized as the estate's caretaker, a man named Doug who lived in a cottage half a mile down the road.
"Mr. Thorne, the nor'easter's making landfall in forty minutes. Bigger than the last one. I'm heading inland. You and your guest need to shelter in the east wing. It's the only section with backup generators. I'll be back when it passes. Two days, maybe three."
The radio went dead.
Cillian's voice came from behind her. "Vesper."
She turned. He stood at the end of the hall. He'd heard everything. His eyes dropped to the papers in her hands.
"You found it," he said.
"Your grandmother left a photo of us. From the party. Five years ago." She held it up. "She wrote a note. 'She's the one. Make sure she stays.'"
He didn't move. Didn't blink. "I didn't know about the photo."
"Did you know about the note?"
"Not until now."
"Am I supposed to believe that? Your grandmother engineered this entire situation. The will. The clause. The co-executor arrangement. She picked me, Cillian. She picked me before your father even married my mother."
He took a step toward her. "I didn't know Eleanor was tracking you. I didn't know she'd taken the photo. I found the compatibility data after she died. The rest of the items—the note and the photo—are new to me.
The lights flickered again. Died. Came back. Died.
Darkness swallowed the hallway. Rain hammered the windows. Wind screamed through the eaves.
"Get to the east wing," he said. "Now."
She didn't argue. The storm was real. The danger was real. Whatever she felt about the note could wait.
They moved through the dark house by flashlight.
Cillian led. She followed close enough to feel the heat of his body but did not touch it.
The east wing was a separate structure connected by a covered walkway.
By the time they crossed it, rain drove sideways, and the wind tried to tear the door from his hand.
He slammed it shut. Locked it. The sound of the storm dulled to a low roar.
The east wing was smaller than the main house. A long corridor with four rooms. A sitting area with a fireplace. A kitchenette. A bedroom. A bathroom. The backup generator hummed behind the walls, keeping the lights on.
Vesper stood in the sitting area, dripping. Her clothes were soaked through. Her hair plastered to her face. The photograph and note were ruined. Water had bled the ink.
She set them on the table. Stared at them.
"Eleanor was thorough," she said. "She knew about the party. She knew about the kiss. She must have had someone following me or you. She found my medical records. She matched our genetic profiles. She wrote the clause. She arranged for my mother to meet your father."
"We don't know that."
We don't know whether she did. "Vesper turned. "Your grandmother built a trap. A years-long trap. And I walked into it."
Cillian pulled off his wet shirt. The movement was automatic. Practical. But it left him bare from the waist up, and Vesper's eyes traced the lines of his body before she could stop them. The scar on his ribs. The tattoo on his shoulder. The muscle that shifted under skin.
"You need dry clothes," he said. "There's a closet in the bedroom. I'll find something."
He disappeared. She stood in the sitting area and listened to the storm. The windows shook. The wind howled. She was trapped. "Three days," the caretaker had said. Maybe more.
Alone with him. In a wing with one bedroom.
She pressed her palms against her eyes. Her body was still buzzing from the kitchen. From his words. From the way he'd looked at her when he said he'd spend every night making sure she never regretted it.
She heard him come back. He held a folded shirt and a pair of sweatpants.
"These might be big on you."
She took them. Their fingers brushed. The contact sent a jolt through her arm. She pulled away fast.
"Where am I sleeping?"
"The bedroom. I'll take the couch."
"Cillian."
"Vesper. Take the bedroom. I'll take the couch. We've had this conversation before."
She wanted to argue. She wanted to scream about the note and the photo and the dead woman who'd planned her life. But she was cold and wet and tired, and the storm wasn't going anywhere.
She changed in the bathroom. His shirt hung past her thighs. The sweatpants bunched at her ankles. She rolled the waistband three times. They smelled like him. Cedar and something darker. She breathed it in and hated herself for the comfort it gave.
When she came out, he'd started a fire. The sitting area glowed warm and orange. He sat on the couch in dry clothes, staring at the flames. The ruined photo and note lay on the table between them.
She sat in the armchair across from him. The fire crackled. The storm raged.
They didn't speak.
Day one passed in silence.
They moved around each other like satellites. She read. He worked. They ate meals at opposite ends of the small table. They didn't touch. They barely spoke. The storm kept them sealed inside while the wind screamed outside.
By evening, the power flickered. The generator held, but the lights dimmed every few minutes. Vesper sat by the fire with a book she couldn't focus on. Cillian cleaned a gun at the kitchen table. The metallic clicks of reassembly were the only sound besides the rain.
She watched his hands. Long fingers. Careful movements. The same hands that had touched her face. That had gripped her hip five years ago.
"Stop staring," he said without looking up.
"I'm not staring. I'm observing."
"Observing what?"
"Your hands."
He set the gun down. Looked at her. "Why?"
"Because I'm trying to decide if I trust them."
The fire crackled. His eyes held hers.
"You can trust my hands," he said. "It's the rest of me you should worry about."
She set her book down. "Tell me something true."
"I've been telling you true things."
"Tell me something you haven't told me. Something real. Something that isn't about genetics or inheritance or your family's research."
He leaned back in his chair. The firelight caught his face. Shadows and light. His jaw worked.
"The night we kissed," he said. "In Cambridge. I went home and couldn't sleep for three days. I kept thinking about you. The way you tasted. The way you felt against me. I didn't know your name. I didn't know anything about you. But I couldn't get you out of my head."
Her chest tightened. "Three days?"
"Three days. Then I got deployed. I spent six months in a desert thinking about a girl I kissed in a hallway. When I came back, I tried to find you. I went to the house where the party was. Nobody knew who you were. You were just a girl in a green dress."
"I wasn't wearing a green dress."
"You were. I remember everything about that night, including the color of your dress. The way your hair smelled. The sound you made when I put my hand on your hip."
She swallowed. The fire was too hot. The room was too small.
"Then my father told me he was getting married.
Showed me a photo of Elena. And there you were, standing beside her in the background.
The girl from the hallway. The girl I'd been looking for.
" He paused. "I thought it was a coincidence.
Then I found the compatibility files. Then I realized Eleanor was playing a game I didn't know about. "
"And now? What do you think now?"
He stood. Walked to the window. Rain streamed down the glass. "I think my grandmother was smarter than all of us. I think she saw something before any of us did. And I think she was right."
"Right about what?"
"About you. About us. About what we could be."
She stood. Her legs were unsteady. "We're stepsiblings."
"We're two people who kissed in a hallway five years ago and couldn't stop thinking about each other. The stepsibling part is a legal technicality. It's not real."
"It feels real."
"Does it? Or does it feel like an excuse?"
She crossed the room. Stopped three feet from him. Close enough to see the rain reflected in his eyes.
"I've wanted children my whole life," she said.
The words came out before she could stop them.
Raw. Honest. "Since I was twelve. I used to draw nurseries in my sketchbook.
I'd pick out names. I'd imagine what they'd look like.
When the doctors told me I couldn't have them, I fell apart.
I spent three months in my apartment not leaving. My mother had to come get me."
He didn't speak. He listened. That was worse. His silence made the words keep coming.
"I accepted it. I grieved. I moved on. I told myself it was fine. I had my work. My illustrations. My life. And then you showed up with those files and told me it was all a lie. That I could have a child. Your child. And I don't know what to do with that. I don't know how to hope again."
His hand came up. Cupped her face. She leaned into it. She couldn't help it.
"Hope," he said. "That's what you're afraid of."
"I'm afraid of wanting something I can't have."
"You can have it. The data says you can."
"The data isn't a guarantee."
"No. It isn't." His thumb traced her cheekbone. "But I can promise you something. If we try, and it doesn't work, I'll still be here. I'm not going anywhere."
"You don't know that. You're going back to your life in twelve months."
"My life is here. This estate. This house. This wing." His voice dropped. "Wherever you are."
She looked up at him. His face was close. His mouth was close. She could feel his breath on her lips.
"This is a terrible idea," she whispered.
"The worst."
"We can't undo it."
"No."
"Your family engineered this."
"They did."
"And I'm supposed to just fall into your arms because the storm is howling and you're looking at me like that."
"How am I looking at you?"