9. Declan #3
“It is.” The answer is barely above a whisper.
I lean back because I suddenly understand how close I am to leaning forward.
Seven years ago, I would have turned this moment into charm.
A softer voice, a teasing line, a way to make desire feel like the easiest answer in the room.
I know that because I remember exactly how it happened.
I remember the balcony, the rain, her hair loose around her shoulders.
I remember making her laugh until she stopped guarding herself.
I remember thinking, foolishly, that wanting something badly enough gave you the right to reach for it.
Now there’s Flynn, and six years between us. Wanting is now the least complicated thing in the room.
“I’m trying to be the man you wanted me to be,” I say.
Her eyes return to mine, and the restaurant seems to go quiet around us.
“That man never existed.”
“I know.”
Her expression changes, surprise breaking through before she can hide it.
I swallow. “But maybe he should have.”
The words hang there between us, not as an apology exactly, but close enough to make breathing difficult.
Talia’s eyes shine under the low restaurant lights, though no tears fall. She would hate it if they did. I know that now. She doesn’t like emotion when it refuses to be useful.
“Declan.”
“I’m not asking for anything tonight.”
“That’s not true.”
It’s my turn to go quiet, because she’s right. I am asking for a great deal. Not with my hands. Not with my mouth. Not even with the words I’ve said. But every second I sit across from her, I’m asking for something she may not be ready to give.
A chance. A future. Permission to become real in the life she built without me.
“You’re right,” I say. “I’m asking. I’m just trying very hard not to take.”
Her breath catches.
That may be the most honest thing I have said to her yet.
***
The elevator ride back to our floor is silent.
Talia stands beside me, close enough that I can smell her perfume, close enough that my hand aches with the effort not to reach for hers.
Her reflection stares back at us from the polished doors, face composed, shoulders straight, hands folded around the strap of her bag.
She looks calm. I’m beginning to understand that calm is sometimes the loudest warning she gives.
The doors open, and we step into the hallway together. Our rooms wait at the end, side by side, gold numbers glowing softly beneath the hallway lights. Adjacent. Separate. Almost.
The story of us, apparently.
Talia stops outside her door and turns with her keycard in hand. “Good night.”
“Good night.”
She doesn’t open the door.
I should walk away.
She looks at me then, really looks, and everything I have been trying to hold back all day moves closer to the surface.
The client. The drive. Flynn asking about the man with the watch.
Her admitting she doesn’t trust herself around me.
The fact that I’m not sure I trust myself either, except for the one thing that matters most.
I will not be the man who takes from her.
“Talia.”
Her fingers tighten around the keycard. I take one step closer, slowly enough that she can stop me if she wants to.
She doesn’t.
“I’m going to kiss you,” I say quietly. “Unless you tell me not to.”
Down the hall, a door closes.
For one suspended second, neither of us breathes. Then she closes the distance herself. The kiss isn’t careful. Maybe it should be. Maybe after seven years, one son, and too much hurt to name, we should be gentle with whatever fragile thing still exists between us.
But Talia’s mouth finds mine like restraint has finally become unbearable, and every thought I have disappears beneath the shock of having her in my arms again. The keycard slips from her fingers and hits the carpet with a soft sound neither of us cares about.
I touch her waist, and she makes a sound against my mouth that nearly ends me.
Not surrender. Not regret. Something hotter.
Angrier. More honest. Her hands close in my shirt, pulling me closer, and for one reckless moment the hallway disappears, the years disappear, every rule and boundary and carefully drawn line burning away beneath the feel of her body against mine.
God, I remember this.
The way she kisses like she’s spent too long denying herself and resents me for being the reason denial failed. The way she trembles once and then steadies, as if even desire has to earn permission to move through her.
I pull back first because someone has to.
For a moment, we stay exactly where we are, my forehead resting against hers as we both try to remember how to breathe. When she finally opens her eyes, I see everything she's trying so hard to hold together. Fear. Want. And beneath them both, something that looks heartbreakingly like grief.
"This changes nothing," she whispers.
I should agree. It would be kinder, safer, more professional. Instead, because I am finished lying to both of us, I let my thumb brush once along her waist and smile faintly.
“It changes everything.”