He broke the kiss, his forehead resting against hers. They were both breathing hard, their breath misting in the cold alley air. His thumb stroked her cheek, wiping away a tear she didn’t know had fallen.
His stormy eyes bored into hers, filled with a raw, protective fire.
She had just kissed a stranger. A man whose last name she didn’t even know.
And she had never felt safer in her life.
The moment stretched, fragile and charged. The real world didn’t exist here in this alley. There was no Cole, no condo, no baby. There was only the solid feel of his chest against hers and the lingering taste of him on her lips.
“I have to go to work,” she whispered. The words sounded absurd.
He didn’t let her go. His hands remained on her, one tangled in her hair, the other pressed against the small of her back. “Are you going to be okay?”
It was such a simple question. No one ever asked her that. They told her what she was, what she should be. They never asked.
“No,” she answered, the truth a quiet surrender. “But I have to go anyway.”
He nodded slowly, his eyes searching hers. “Okay. But you’re not going back there. To him.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a condition. A line drawn in the damp cobblestones.
She couldn’t promise that. Her life was a tangled mess, and one desperate kiss couldn’t undo the knots. But she didn’t have to tell him that. Not yet.
She just nodded.
He finally released her, stepping back. The absence of his warmth was immediate and brutal.
“How will you get there?” he asked.
“Cab.”
He just looked at her for a moment, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a worn leather wallet. He took out a fifty-dollar bill and pressed it into her hand.
“Kian, no, I can’t…”
“Take it, Audrey.” His voice was firm, leaving no room for argument. “Get a cab. Get coffee. Just take it.”
Her fingers closed around the money. It was just cash, but it felt like something more. An investment. A lifeline.
He walked her to the mouth of the alley and flagged down a taxi with an effortless authority that seemed at odds with his rugged appearance. He opened the door for her.
Before she got in, she turned to him. “Thank you.”
“There’s nothing to thank me for,” he said, his gaze intense. “I’ll see you later.”
Another statement. A promise.
She slid into the back of the cab and gave the driver the museum’s address. As the car pulled away, she saw him in the rearview mirror, standing on the curb, watching until she was gone.
The museum was her sanctuary, but today it felt like a courthouse where she was about to be judged. She slipped in through a side entrance, avoiding the main hall. Her office was a small, cluttered space overlooking the rear sculpture garden. It was her haven.
She booted up her computer, the familiar hum doing little to soothe her frayed nerves. The kiss with Kian replayed in her mind—a vivid, searing memory that made her skin tingle.
Then Cole’s voice echoed in her head. It would be a shame if something happened.
A chill snaked down her spine.
She pushed it aside. He was just being manipulative. A bully.
She had work to do. A deadline. The final application for the Atherton Grant was due by five p.m. It was the last, crucial piece of funding she needed. A ten-page proposal with a detailed budget and letters of support she’d spent the last month perfecting.
She navigated to the project folder on the main server.
Exhibit_18thCentury_Maritime > Grants > Atherton
She clicked the folder.
It was empty.
Her blood ran cold.
“No,” she whispered, her heart starting to pound.
She clicked again. Refreshed the window. Still empty.
Panic began its icy ascent up her throat. She searched her desktop. Nothing. She checked her recent documents. The file wasn’t listed. She dug into the server’s automated trash folder. Empty.
It was gone. Not just moved. It was deleted. Wiped.
The proposal, the budget spreadsheets, the scanned letters from academics and donors. Everything. A month of her life. Gone.
She frantically searched the server’s backup logs. There was a record of the file being saved last night at 11:42 p.m. And then another record.
File Deleted. 7:15 a.m.
This morning. While she was at The Crow’s Nest. While she was with Kian.
Cole. He was the only other person with remote access to her server files. He’d insisted, for “emergency work-from-home situations.”
Her hands were shaking. She couldn’t prove it. It would look like her own incompetence. An accidental drag-and-drop. A catastrophic mistake. The kind of mistake that gets a curator fired right before her big gala.
Her phone felt like a block of ice in her hand. She scrolled to his name. She had to call. She had to hear his voice.
He answered on the first ring. “Audrey! Honey, I was just about to call you. Did you get my messages about the house in Greenwich? The realtor sent over a video tour.”
His voice was so warm. So normal. So false.
“Cole,” she said, her own voice a strangled croak. “The Atherton Grant file. It’s gone.”
A pause. Perfectly timed. “What? What do you mean, gone?”
“It’s been deleted. From the server. Everything. The proposal, the budget… all of it.”
“Oh, my God.” He sounded genuinely shocked. Horrified. “Audrey, no. Are you sure? Maybe you saved it somewhere else by accident? You’ve been under so much pressure lately, it’s easy to get mixed up.”
The gaslighting was immediate. Subtle. It was her fault. She was stressed. She was confused.
“I didn’t get mixed up, Cole. I know where I saved it. It was there last night and it’s not there now.”
“Okay, okay, calm down, baby. Don’t panic.” His voice was a soothing balm of poison. “I’m sure it’s just a technical glitch. Did you call IT?”
“I am IT for my department,” she snapped. “There’s no glitch. The log says it was deleted at 7:15 this morning.”
Another calculated pause. “7:15? But… that’s when you were out on your walk. Oh, Audrey.” His voice was thick with pity. “Could you have deleted it from your phone by accident? The server app is so clumsy.”
He was creating the narrative. Her mistake. Her fault.
She felt the walls of her office closing in. He had her. He had done this, and he was framing it as her failure. The exact kind of failure he’d warned her about just hours ago.
“I’m leaving the office right now,” he said, his voice firm, taking control. “Don’t touch anything. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. We’ll figure this out. I’ll help you look through everything. We’re a team, remember? We’ll fix this together.”
He hung up.
Audrey stared at her computer screen. The empty folder was a black hole, sucking her career, her confidence, her entire life into it.
He would come. He would pretend to search. He would hold her while she cried, telling her it wasn’t her fault, even though they both knew he’d already convinced her it was. He would be her savior from the disaster he had created.
Her phone buzzed in her hand.
Not a call. A text. From a number she didn’t recognize.
Are you okay?
Just three words.
Kian.
She stared at the screen, the simple message a stark contrast to Cole’s suffocating promises.
We’ll fix this together.
The lie was so perfect, so complete. Cole was on his way, the handsome prince arriving to save her from the dragon he’d unleashed. And in twenty minutes, he would walk through that door. He would put his arms around her.
And she would let him. She had to.
She was trapped. Erased.
Her thumb hovered over the screen, over the text from Kian. The man from the docks. The man who saw stories in teacups.
The man who had no idea how deep the water was, or what kind of monster was swimming in it.