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She’d left in the cover of the night. At least, that was what he’d been sure of. He’d convinced himself he’d seen the last of her. This time for good.
Making his way down the hill to the beach, it had felt like the cruellest déjà vu, hurling him several years and nautical miles back to another continent.
So naturally, it had to have been him to come looking for her. He wouldn’t lose her. Not again.
Not now, when they were closer than ever before.
But there she’d been, having a late-night swim. Of all things, Florence. What was he to do with her? He could have shaken her for what she had put him through. He could have dropped to his knees in the sand. Instead, he had done what he always did – he'd swallowed the feeling down and kept his cool.
Now, judging by her steady breathing, she was asleep, the weight of her head on his chest grounding him in a way he loathed to admit. Untroubled. Unaware of what she had just put him through. Cutler knew he should wake her. Should break the spell before he let himself believe in it. But it was such a fragile thing, this moment. A brittle, trembling thing. He didn’t dare move.
A little longer couldn’t hurt.
The night was mild and the stars bright. He listened to the ocean’s melody and allowed his mind to drift. It was the closest to peace he could remember feeling.
The air cooled the damp fabric of his shirt where her hair clung to it, but he didn’t care. Cutler only cared that she hadn’t disappeared. That when he had come looking, he had found her. That this wasn’t, in fact, a cruel echo of the night she had slipped through his fingers all those years ago.
The fear of it had gripped him the moment the maid burst into his chambers, breathless, stammering about Florence walking off the premises alone. Alone, at this hour. Alone, when she was meant to be safe under his roof. He had barely taken the time to throw on his banyan before heading out, lantern in hand, prepared to scour every street, every alley if that was what it took.
Because if she was truly gone, if she had truly left him behind again—
He exhaled sharply through his nose. It hadn’t happened. Wouldn’t happen.
This had to be different. He wouldn’t allow it to be anything else. Because the alternative – losing her again – was unbearable. When it came to Florence, rationality failed him. When it came to her, all the things he prided himself on, his discipline, his self-control, they meant nothing.
The woman in his arms had been a wildfire ever since he’d first met her, impossible to tame, always burning, and her desire for freedom equal parts laughable as it was fascinating. But it was a lost cause. The blank spaces on the map were being filled in. There was nowhere one could run. No safe havens. No uncharted seas. Florence needed to realise that before her recklessness got her into trouble she couldn’t escape.
Here, in the silence between crashing waves and her untroubled sleep, every one of his fears and hopes was intermingled.
Cutler didn’t believe in fate, in an almighty god or destiny, but what was this if not a second chance? His chance to show her how good a life under the protection of his name could be. How rewarding, how safe.
Florence shifted in her sleep, curling her fingers against the fabric of his shirt. A pang of something warm spread through him.
How had she done this to him?
He had spent years convincing himself he had hardened his heart to primal desires, that he had buried the foolish, sentimental part of himself that once clung to the thought of her. Had only allowed himself to think of her in the safe cover of darkness, where his memories could be as wistful as they were cruel.
But memories had teeth.
More often than not, they dragged him back to the theatre, to the way she had looked at him when she’d said it – I don’t want to marry you, Cutler. Seven syllables, delivered softly. The world had not ended that night, but something in him had.
And yet, here she was; real, alive, in his arms. Did she even realise what that did to him?
He wanted to believe her tonight.
“You’re not alone in this.”
No one had ever said such a thing to him before. No one had ever meant it, at least.
His arms tightened around her, just slightly. Just enough to feel the weight of her, to memorise the shape of her against him. A reckless indulgence. A mistake he was already making. But it had been so long since someone had offered him anything without expecting something in return.
His eyelids were getting heavier, too. He should wake her. Should have done so minutes ago. He shouldn’t have trusted her with his burdens. His problems. Should have known better.
He could feel her warmth, her cheek against his chest, her hair tickling his neck. And he was still holding her against him as if that alone would keep her from slipping through his fingers. Again.
Perhaps this time, she’d stay. And if he asked again, if he dared, perhaps she’d say yes.
His hand moved to her head, and he gently ran his fingers through her hair. It was coarse, unruly, and thick with saltwater.
He shouldn’t be doing this. He shouldn’t be lying here, letting his guard down, letting himself believe in things he knew better than to believe in.
But she was still here.
For now.
His fingers threaded through her hair once more, the motion both indulgent and self-punishing. He exhaled. “You’ll be the end of me, you know.”
Cutler swallowed, his throat tight. Florence let out a soft noise. A small, sleepy thing that went straight through him. He stilled. If she woke now – if she so much as looked at him – he wouldn’t know what to do.
Her breathing evened out again, and his pulse settled. His fingertips were brushing over her shoulder now, the lightest of touches, barely a graze. Just enough to make sure she was real. She sighed in her sleep, curling in closer. And damn him—damn him, his hold on her firmed.
“And I think I’d let you,” he murmured. “If it came to it.”
Before he could think better of it, before he could remind himself he should not want this, he pressed his lips to the crown of her head. The smell of salt and sea filled his lungs. She would never know.
But for this moment, for this one fleeting, stolen moment that wouldn’t survive the morning, she was his.