Chapter 32 Smoke & Embers
Smoke she claimed it as if it had always been hers, everyone else merely borrowing it.
Confidence laced her every move, unapologetic and sure.
The low golden light from the chandeliers flickered across her skin as she passed beneath them, drawing glances in her wake.
Conversation dipped, briefly, long enough for people to track her path across the room, some staring longer than they should’ve.
Some looks held curiosity. Others, thinly veiled envy.
A few women whispered behind manicured hands, eyes narrowing with a kind of cold appraisal.
And then there were the men, the ones who measured her with practiced interest, mistaking her presence for something they could possess.
But one gaze burned hotter than the rest.
Gideon.
He stood near the bar, speaking with a patron, but the second she crossed the threshold, his attention snapped to her. He didn’t move. Didn’t smile. But she knew him now. She knew what that tightly held tension meant, the way his whole body stilled, like touch would tip him past pretending.
She saw it in the way his grip shifted subtly on the glass in his hand. The gentle roll of his shoulders as he adjusted his stance. The flicker in his eyes that gave him away before his expression ever changed.
And his mouth curved at the corner. Not a full smile. Only hers.
Heat stirred in her gut, slow and certain, but she didn’t let it show. Her stride never faltered. She slipped behind the bar with ease, settling into her space like it had been waiting for her.
Marco caught the shift immediately, grinning like he’d spotted the lead in his favorite drama.
“Well, well, well,” he said, draping his arms across the counter like it was all for show. His grin was lazy, but his eyes sparkled with mischief. “Someone’s strutting in like she owns the whole place.” He tapped a knuckle against the bar. “Feelin’ good, Mountain Mama?”
Arden tossed a bar towel over her shoulder with a smirk. “Why yes, Marco. I am. And no, I don’t need anyone’s permission to walk in like I own it.”
Fatima breezed past a moment later, arching a brow as she gave Arden a once-over. “Oh, honey, you’re lit from within. I don’t know what you’ve been up to, but keep doing it.”
She didn’t have to say Gideon’s name. The glance she shot toward him said plenty.
Arden rolled her eyes but didn’t offer a denial. She reached for the bourbon, letting the silence speak for itself.
Because the truth was simple. She felt good. She wasn’t holding back. Not shrinking, not tucking pieces of herself away to make others comfortable. Not tonight. Tonight, she was all flame and steel. And the room? It bent to her heat.
A force behind the bar—mixing drinks with practiced hands, flashing sharp smiles that made tips rain like confetti, charging the room with tension that bordered on electric.
And Gideon? She felt him watching.
Not in the overt way some men did, nothing crude or obvious in it. He was too controlled for that. Too measured.
But she felt it in the air between them. In the pause of his breath when she stretched to reach the top shelf. In the way his gaze followed her when she leaned over the bar, enough to tease. Like a fuse waiting for flame.
And she let him look.
Because when he watched her, it wasn’t about possession. It was about recognition—seeing every part she refused to dim. And after today—Central Park, the Met, the kiss that lingered on her lips—that wasn’t passing heat.
This was something that stayed.
Something that claimed space.
This is real.
By the time the last patrons trickled out, the room had quieted into a low and steady undertone, like the final crackle of embers after a long burn.
Arden moved through the space with slow, practiced ease, wiping down the bar in steady strokes.
Closing time always felt like an exhale, hers to claim.
But tonight, she wasn’t alone.
She didn’t hear him approach. She felt him.
That shift in the air. The prickle beneath her skin.
Gideon.
He stood behind her, close enough that the heat of him raised goosebumps along her neck. Not touching. Not yet.
But present in a way that made her breath catch before she even turned to face him.
His expression was unreadable. But his eyes? They held something slower. Deeper.
A gravity that didn’t need to be named.
Her fingers stilled on the cloth in her hand. “What?” she asked, voice dry. “You sticking around to scare off the stragglers?”
He didn’t smile, at least not all the way. A subtle lift at the corner of his mouth. A pull that twisted low in her stomach. “You’re not a straggler.”
She cocked her head. “No?”
“No.” His gaze dropped for a moment, then lifted again, steady. Intentional.
The air thickened between them, charged and impossible. Words hovered there, unspoken and undeniable.
And then, Marco barked from the back.
“You two done smoldering over there, or should I dim the lights and set the mood?”
Arden laughed, shaking her head, but the moment didn’t fully break. Not when she caught the way Gideon’s jaw clenched ever so slightly. The kind of tension that didn’t shout; it simmered.
“Come on,” he said, voice lower now. “I’ll walk you.”
She hesitated, not out of doubt, but because she was learning how to allow someone to offer care in small, quiet ways. Someone showing up to keep her safe. She nodded, shrugged into her jacket, and followed him out into the dark.
?
The city hadn’t quite gone quiet, but it was close. As they walked, Manhattan’s noise faded to a blur. Snippets of conversation floated from nearby patios. Headlights cast fleeting shadows along the damp street. A lone car horn split their easy silence now and then.
But the deeper they moved into the dark, the more the quiet thickened—restless. The kind of stillness that made you listen a little harder, even if you didn’t know why.
They walked in step, their pace unhurried.
Arden’s car was parked several blocks away, which was typical for nights when luck didn’t grant her a nearby spot. She’d grown accustomed to it. The inconvenience. The long walks.
But tonight, the distance felt different. Like space drawn tight. Their steps slapped the concrete like punctuation marks.
The rain hadn’t left; it clung to the asphalt in a hush of petrichor and streetlight, like the city was biting back a warning.
And then Arden stopped cold. Her chest seized.
Gideon noticed the shift before she could speak. “Arden?”
She didn’t answer. Just stared.
Her car stood half a block ahead.
Or what was left of it.
The windows were gone. Every single one—blown out, jagged glass clinging to the frames like teeth.
The windshield was spiderwebbed with cracks, its surface dusted in red.
Not a rose—petals. Torn. Ruined.
Strewn across the shattered glass like confetti at a funeral. Some clung to the cracks. Others had drifted to the sidewalk.
And there, at the base of the front tire, was the stem. Half-crushed. Split down the middle. The green gone pale where it had been torn apart.
This wasn’t the same careful message left on her doorstep or tucked near her car before. This was anger. Escalation.
She curled her hands into fists, the bite of her nails grounding her in the moment.
Months ago, this would’ve undone her. Left her gutted. Hollow. Shaking.
Now she was furious.
A hand touched the small of her back, steady and grounding.
Gideon.
He stepped forward without a word, surveying the damage with deadly composure. His breathing stayed measured, too even, like he was one breath from detonating.
Then he ground his heel into the stem.
The snap was soft. Final.
A sound too sharp in the silence.
He stood there, unmoving.
Then turned to her.
“Tell me everything.”
Not a suggestion.
A command.
Arden swallowed hard.
The wind stirred, sending petals tumbling across the sidewalk—red smudges against concrete, too vivid, too deliberate.
She didn’t know who had left this message.
But she felt the intent in her bones.
Not yet.
But this wasn’t about her past anymore.
She could feel it.
This was the beginning of something larger.
Darker.
And whoever had left this behind?
They hadn’t just made a mistake.
They’d made an enemy.
From a distance, concealed in the layered dark of the city, Sebastian watched.
Not from hesitation.
From certainty.
Because he had left the rose—whole.
A gesture.
A vow.
Placed with reverence, meant to remind her of what she already knew.
She was never alone.
But someone had ruined it.
Shattered the glass.
Scattered the petals.
Crushed the stem.
Rage coiled through him—white-hot, unrelenting.
Amateurs.
They didn’t understand her.
Didn’t see her.
But he did.
Arden Rivers wasn’t soft.
She wasn’t meant to be coaxed or controlled.
Little Fire.
She wasn’t some delicate thing to be warned away.
She wasn’t just fire.
She was a goddess of ruin.
And these fools? These cowardly, scrambling hands that dared touch what was his?
All they’d done was make her burn hotter.
Let Gideon stand beside her.
Let him bask in her glow while it lasted.
He’d never earned the heat she gave so freely.
Soon, Gideon would know what it felt like to lose everything.
To watch the fire turn on him.
And Arden?
She’d see it.
She’d feel it.
The truth she kept running from.
The one written into her bones.
She was his.
Not Blackwell’s.
Not anyone else’s.
Only his.
And when she finally woke up to that truth?
She’d thank him.
She’d burn for him.
And she’d never even see it coming.