6
We stand beside the bench as my suddenly soured mood darkens further, even while I’m coaching myself not to ruin this day. But there are things he needs to tell me after all this time.
‘Why are you really here, Elias?’ I ask.
‘You know why.’ His shoulders lock. Whatever openness was there a moment ago shutters in an instant.
‘No,’ I say, lifting my head to meet his gaze. ‘I don’t want to know the reasons they stacked on your name. I want to know the real one. Why do you put up with this?’
He stares. Like he used to at the beginning, weighing reasons, truths, lies and their outcomes. And I catch him before he’s able to utter a single word to end this visit.
‘Elias Crane. Don’t you dare open that mouth and call that guard.’ I narrow my eyes at him, trying to fight the fire consuming my ribs. ‘First, you’re going to make a bloody wish and blow out your bloody candle.’
I pull him down and we both settle on the wooden surface.
‘It’s not lit.’ He cocks a brow.
‘Pretend it is.’
‘I’m bad at role-playing.’
‘Make the effort.’
‘Is role-playing another one of your kinks?’
‘Crane…’ I warn.
His eyes drop to my mouth.
‘Noted,’ he whispers, the sound vibrating through every part of me until air is scarce and heat skitters beneath my skin.
He drags in a slow breath. Keeps his eyes on mine for another devastating moment. ‘I didn’t see you last week.’
The abrupt change in subject would be welcome if it weren’t for the way his gaze lingers on my face a beat too long before he finally looks down.
I bow my head a little, absurdly relieved to find it still attached to my neck, while the rest of me is still fighting against his attention.
‘I was down with influenza.’ Rooting through your past like a thief in parish records – but I’m not handing him that yet.
It takes everything I have not to tear the moment open with it.
My pulse is still misbehaving. His mouth is still far too close.
‘Hm.’ His gaze moves to the cake.
I take it out of the box.
‘Make a wish,’ I say, quieter this time.
His brows pull in. A shadow crosses his face.
‘I never got to eat my own birthday cake before.’
My jaw slackens. My heart skips a beat. Stammers. ‘Surely, you had some as a child.’
That expression, hard as prison brick… it makes my chest ache.
Then the mask slides back into place with adept ease, and the corner of his eye creases in a smile his mouth doesn’t give. ‘Do all birthday cakes look this strange?’
I let out a scoff, clinging to the deflection because it’s safer than tenderness. Safer than finding out what kindness does to him.
To me.
‘A wish.’ I hold the cake up.
‘Then?’
‘Then—’ I hold his gaze. ‘You’re going to tell me one truth I should know. One truth anyone you call a friend deserves.’
‘Friend,’ he counters, but I can’t tell if it’s with distaste or approval.
‘Friend,’ I affirm.
Those walls rebuild in an instant. The muscle in his cheek ripples once. He crosses his arms, the purple at his wrist stark against the porcelain of his skin.
‘One truth from me. One truth from you,’ he amends.
I slant my head to the side, searching his face. ‘I’ve been truthful with you.’
He cocks a brow, gaze demonstrably shifting to my hand.
My ring.
Shit.
It’s well past winter, and it occurs to me that I told him I was getting married then. Six months past the supposed date, I’m choking on my own words.
Something congeals somewhere between my chest and my mouth. I’ve spent months rattling his locked doors while standing with both hands braced against my own.
Unexpectedly, a thought seeds itself into my mind, and it’s not one I’m particularly willing to water: have I been part of the problem? All this circling with books and art and banter, instead of saying the thing that festered underneath.
I stare at my engagement ring and drag in a breath that now, stubbornly, doesn’t want to leave.
Maybe I’ve been hiding in his shadows because they were easier to hold than my own?
I tend to spit fire when someone calls me out on my bollocks and points at the dirt beneath the bed. Yet here I am, swallowing words.
‘We didn’t go through with it.’ It’s the only thing that I’m able to push through my teeth.
‘Who broke it off?’ he asks carefully.
My eyes stay fixed on the round cubic zirconia imitating something precious, as though enough scrutiny might force some truth out of it.
Then he steals what breath I have left and lifts my chin with the barest brush of his finger. His touch brings life to my cheeks, and my mouth parts as if that alone might coax the words out.
His gaze catches there. Neither of us pretends he’s interested in my answer in that moment.
‘I know it wasn’t him who walked away,’ he whispers.
‘Is that so?’ I raise a brow. When he doesn’t say anything else, I add, ‘I made him cheat.’ The words spill out raw. Unpolished.
He’s already shaking his head. ‘You can’t make someone cheat. You can’t make them lie and pretend.’
His fingertip stays at the point of my chin, the pressure feather-light but absolute. His eyes begin a slow sweep from the arch of my brow to the quiver in my mouth I fail to hide, and across the slope of my jaw.
This kind of concentration makes my pulse stutter. He must be able to feel it.
Judging by the minute darkening of his eyes, he does.
‘No man throws away gold unless he’s blind to its worth,’ he murmurs. Each syllable needles straight into my skin. Each pause pulls my lungs tighter.
His thumb almost grazes my lower lip before he seems to remember himself.
‘Leah,’ he warns, brows raised in mock warning. ‘If those tears fall, I might have to jump over that wall and go find him.’
A nervous chuckle falls out of me. ‘You’re in custody, Elias.’ I yank my face away before I lose control of my tongue, considering my eyes have already betrayed me.
He grins, teeth white and wolfish. ‘I’ve got friends outside.’
‘Where were they when they caged you like a dog?’
And just like that, I shatter the moment. Smash it and stomp on it.
His smile dies.
The steel in his backbone returns. The cold that prickles my skin now suddenly seems to come from him.
Good going, Leah. Happy fucking birthday, Crane.
He lowers his hand.
‘Guard!’ he calls, voice ringing off concrete. ‘The lady’s ready to leave.’
My heart sinks.
The officer standing near the entrance stirs as if his ears were wired to respond to Crane’s voice alone.
I twist at the waist and jab a stiff finger at the uniform. ‘I’m done when I say I’m done!’
To my surprise, he stops. Gaze shifts to Crane, who’s trying – failing – to suppress a stunned smirk.
‘Truth for truth,’ I snarl at Elias.
Now those peach-coloured lips press thin. He doesn’t speak for a second, but I can already see it in his posture. There’s a sliver of honour wedged somewhere deep in his bones that no prison could rot away.
When he realises I’m not budging, he exhales and looks at the disaster beneath frosting still in my hand. ‘Cake first?’
Mum always called me impulsive. Dad said I’d break something if I kept doing things before thinking.
So in the grand tradition of Leandra Nottingham, I drive two fingers into the side of the cake, tear off a chunk, and shove it straight into his mouth.
His eyes widen as he coughs once, crumbs tumbling onto his lap with a bit of the frosting smearing the side of his cheek. There’s a muffled chuckle from the guard as Elias flails to keep the rest of it from falling all over him, one palm beneath his chin.
When he finally catches the bite between his teeth – and my fingers are a fraction too slow to retreat – his tongue grazes the pad of one.
My body locks up.
His too.
His eyes lift to mine while the tip of his tongue is still there.
I can’t tell whether the contact was accidental. It’s such a small one, but it sends me careening from heaven to hell and back.
The summer air isn’t helping with the heat that pinches at my cheeks.
‘Yum. Vanilla and sweat,’ he murmurs as he swallows the piece.
I know it’s a jab, but I welcome the reprieve. Especially now that a slow ache has settled low in my belly.
‘What about my wish?’ he asks.
‘The candle’s not lit.’ I narrow my eyes at him.
He grins.
But I’m burning. I am… absolutely… thoroughly sweltering.
‘The truth, Crane,’ I urge, not letting him divert us again.
The amusement bleeds out. Memories begin their wretched ascent to his eyes.
Then he shuts down entirely and stands up.
‘Not yet,’ he murmurs and glances towards the guard. ‘Can we have five minutes?’ he calls.
The guard’s eyes fall to me. I nod.
I know the camera’s trained on us, so he won’t do anything.
But it isn’t the camera that makes me feel safe – it’s what we have that makes me certain Elias Crane won’t hurt me.
The guard retreats a little further into the yard to give us enough space that our words just might remain only between the two of us.
Elias’ eyes are fixed on his toes, tracing the elusive past until nature is the only witness to our words.
‘Is a man only the sum of where he comes from,’ he muses, ‘or what he chooses once he knows what it has made of him?’
Of course he gives me a question instead of an answer. It’s broad enough to hide inside, philosophical enough that he never has to name what has cut open the wound.
It is his language.
‘The latter,’ I respond, playing along. ‘And what made him that way?’
He lifts his crystalline eyes to mine. Several breaths pass before he decides on his answer.
‘The world.’
‘People, you mean,’ I say quietly. ‘Like you said – people can’t make one cheat, lie… commit murder.’
He looks beyond me, to the sky, as though the chirp of the birds carries the secrets he doesn’t want me to grasp.
I wait. Arm myself with patience I don’t have.
‘I have a temper,’ he declares finally. ‘My old man had a temper.’
Pieces of him begin to give way, and I can’t compel myself to look away.
My heart is thudding wildly, partly from the musky scent of him carried on the breeze, partly from the restless anticipation of finally knowing why he’s really here.
‘You light two fires, and there’s no doubt the house will burn down.’ He looks at the cake. A long breath leaves him, like pain travelling on memory. ‘More vanilla-sweat, please?’
My hand gives a shudder as I reach for another scoop, and he lowers his head to take it from my fingers.
I feed it to him. Slow.
And this time, neither of us startles at the contact.
He laps it off, buying time to decide what other truths he is ready to let loose.
Each brush of his tongue has something decadent shooting straight between my thighs.
As he makes that last swallow, his eyes fall to his feet again and stay there in quiet recollection.
The ice that settles over him pulls my spine straighter. I’m suddenly wondering whether I’ve imagined it all.
My hand doesn’t feel steady enough to hold the cake any more. I set it down behind me.
‘Was it Isak?’ I ask.
The colour drains from his face.
His eyes snap to mine, the hard mask that calcifies his expression nearly has me moving to the other end of the bench.
‘How do you know about Isak?’ His voice drops a register. The soft philosopher with the sky in his eyes disappears, leaving behind the man that the prison built restraints for.
Every sensible part of me tells me to put distance between us.
Some darker part notices how deep his voice has become. And I’m not sure if I don’t move because of fear… or because something twisted in me wants more of it.
‘You won’t tell me anything,’ I respond.
‘It has nothing to do with you.’
‘What’s Simon Cromwell doing about the whole thing?’
His nostrils flare.
‘Exactly what he’s expected to do – nothing.
He’s the Crane Logs & Timber lawyer. He caters to the company’s interests.
’ He frowns at a pebble between his feet.
‘And then some.’ His throat works on a swallow.
‘I’m just the renegade son my father had with a foreign mistress who’d left me to his mercy. ’
My hand fists on my lap in an effort to stop myself from reaching for him. ‘You don’t have anyone to represent you?’
‘Drop it, Leah, you don’t know everything. You don’t know what’s at stake.’
I should stop.
‘And Melody?’ My tongue rushes in.
I’m almost certain I hear a tooth crack when his jaw clenches.
His ragged breathing and the intense stare he gives me have my hackles rising.
My body reacts on instinct as I slowly get off the bench and leave the cake behind.
‘Guard!’ he calls, firmly this time.
I look at the man who starts towards us, making a quick assessment of the situation, and I nod in quiet acquiescence.
‘All done, Ms Nottingham?’ the uniform calls, still walking towards us.
I hold Crane’s gaze.
He gives me nothing back. Not a twitch of his mouth. Not the slightest softening around his eyes.
‘Stop looking into this.’ The words fall quietly and break against the concrete between his feet.
George has already opened the door.
‘Come along now, miss, it’s hot outside,’ he yawns, tugging at his sweat-damp collar as he glares at the clear sky.
I start for the exit, passing the other guard.
Each step away feels like walking against a current. The bench behind me might as well be on fire.
‘No kiss again, Crane?’ George sniggers. ‘Ladies must really hate your ugly arse.’
That stops me cold.
George’s eyes shift to me, sobering – but far from apologetic.
A reckless heat lashes through me and snaps me upright.
I turn on my heel. Elias’ eyes climb from my feet to my face as I march back towards him.
They barely have time to widen before I invade the space between his thighs.
I press my mouth to his. One hand cradles his cheek, thumb below his chin – where it shouldn’t matter that his pulse is thudding frantically.
His mouth parts in surprise.
In the first heartbeat, he gives me nothing.
In the second, the walls crumble inside him.
His hand closes gently around my hip – barely there.
I don’t make it soft. I’m not even sure I’m aware of what I’m doing. I only feel the raw friction of breath and lips colliding, as if I could bruise the silence between us into submission.
His mouth turns hungry beneath mine, and when our tongues meet, the kiss stops belonging entirely to me.
A gruff sound catches somewhere low in his throat, reminding me what lies beneath the composure – what I was stupid enough to wake.
Everything falls away – concrete, guards, cake, guilt, truths, fucking candles.
His fingers tighten once against my jeans.
My skin pebbles. My mind reels.
‘That’s enough.’ A bark from the doorway cuts through me.
My heart kicks my thoughts into a stumble.
I drag in a gasp and pull away before I shed the last semblance of common sense.
He gazes up at me with hooded eyes, and we feed each other several erratic breaths.
His mouth is kissed red from mine, his hand suspended beside my hip, fingers curling around nothing beside my thigh.
Whatever apology tries to crawl up my throat, I swallow it down.
I’m already backing away, with the taste of him still on my lips.
One step. Another.
His eyes follow every one of them.
No smile. No joke. No accusation.
Just that stare. Like I’ve stolen something.
Or done something extraordinarily stupid.