Chapter 12: "Closed For A Private Event"

Killian's words followed me all the way home and refused to leave.

Ask me again after Kade takes you out tomorrow.

I turned it over so many times that night I barely slept, and by the time Friday evening rolled around I still hadn't decided what I was supposed to be looking for.

Kade texted me an address instead of a restaurant name, which should have been my first warning. I typed it into my phone expecting some exclusive members-only club, the kind of place Killian favored, and instead found myself parking on a quiet side street in a part of the city I hadn't visited since law school.

When I arrived, it wasn't a rooftop or a private dining room. It was a bookstore, closed for the evening, warm yellow light spilling from the windows onto the empty sidewalk. A hand-lettered sign in the window read CLOSED FOR A PRIVATE EVENT, and for a moment I stood on the sidewalk just looking at it, trying to reconcile this quiet, unassuming storefront with the man who owned half of a two billion dollar company.

He was waiting inside the door when I knocked, sleeves rolled to his forearms, none of Killian's polish anywhere on him.

"I rented it out," he said, like that explained anything. "For an hour. I thought you might prefer this to a table full of strangers watching us."

I stepped inside, and for the first time in weeks, no one was watching me at all.

"How did you know I like bookstores?"

"I didn't." He shrugged, almost sheepish, an expression that looked strange on a face built for boardrooms. "I know you used to work extra shifts at the library near your college. I looked it up. This felt close enough."

I didn't know what to do with that. Killian showered me with wine and string lights and declarations. Kade had found the quietest version of comfort I hadn't known I wanted and built an entire evening around it.

He led me deeper into the store, past shelves that reached the ceiling, the air thick with the particular smell of old paper and older stories. Somewhere near the back, a small table had been set up with two mismatched chairs, a thermos of what turned out to be very good coffee, and a plate of pastries from a bakery I recognized as one three blocks from my apartment.

"You went to Delacroix's," I said, surprised. "That's my bakery."

"I know," he said simply, as though that explained everything, which, infuriatingly, it kind of did.

We wandered the aisles slowly, him asking questions that had nothing to do with the company or the twins or the mess I'd woken up in. What I read as a kid. Why I became a lawyer instead of a litigator's assistant like everyone expected. Whether I still believed in the man who pulled me out of that river seven years ago, or whether I'd built him into something bigger than a person could actually be.

He pulled a battered copy of some novel off the shelf at one point, flipping through it with a small, private smile, like he was greeting an old friend rather than a book. "This was the first thing I read after I got back to New York," he said. "Killian gave me a hard time for it. Said a grown man shouldn't cry over paperbacks."

"Did you? Cry?"

"Twice," he admitted, without an ounce of shame. "Don't tell my brother."

It was such a small, human thing to say that it caught me off guard more than any of Killian's grand gestures had all week. There was no audience here. No blog waiting to photograph us. Just him, a shelf of worn spines, and the truth handed over without being asked for it.

We ended up sitting cross-legged on the floor between two shelves, an odd, undignified position for a man who ran a multinational company, the plate of pastries balanced between us, forgotten. He told me about growing up the son everyone expected to inherit everything and the terrifying weight that came with being the reliable one, the one who never got to be reckless because someone had to hold the family together while Killian burned through consequences like they were kindling.

"Do you resent him for that?" I asked.

"Sometimes," he admitted. "Then I remember he probably resents me just as much, for different reasons. Being the good twin isn't actually a compliment, Mia. It just means everyone assumes you don't need saving."

"Do you? Need saving?"

Something flickered across his face, there and gone too fast to name. "Everyone does. Eventually."

That last question sat heavy in my chest for a long moment before I answered.

"I don't know anymore," I admitted. "I used to think finding him would fix something in me. Now I'm not sure what I even found." I traced a finger along the spines of a row of paperbacks, not quite able to meet his eyes. "For seven years he was perfect in my head. No flaws, no bad days, nothing. Just the man who saved me and vanished before I could ruin it by actually getting to know him."

"And now?"

"Now I have two versions of him standing in front of me every single day, and neither one matches the man in my memory anymore." I laughed, short and humorless. "Maybe he never did. Maybe I built a stranger out of five minutes and a mole I can't stop thinking about."

Kade went very still beside a shelf of worn paperbacks; his gray eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made my skin prickle.

"What if he wasn't what you expected?" he asked quietly. "What if the version of him you built in your head is nothing like the man underneath it?"

"Then I suppose I'd have to decide if I still wanted him anyway."

Something in his expression cracked open, just for a second, raw and unguarded in a way I'd never seen from him. He opened his mouth like he was finally going to tell me something that mattered.

"Mia, there's something I need to tell you. About that night."

My whole body went still. Seven years of wondering narrowed down to this one moment, in a closed bookstore, his voice low and careful like he was choosing every word before he let it out.

"What about it?"

He reached up, like he meant to touch my face, then stopped himself halfway, his hand curling into a fist at his side instead.

"I need you to trust me first," he said. "Before I say it. Because once I do, I don't think I can take it back."

"Kade, you're scaring me."

"Good," he said quietly. "You should be a little scared. I am."

He never got the chance to say another word. The bookstore's front door chimed, and Killian walked in like he owned the place too, two coffees in hand and a grin that died the instant he saw the look on his brother's face.

"Am I interrupting something?"

Neither of us answered right away. Kade rose slowly from the floor beside me, brushing invisible dust from his knees, the vulnerable crack in his composure sealing back over so fast I almost wondered if I'd imagined it. Killian's eyes moved between us, cataloging the scattered pastries, my flushed face, the careful distance his brother had suddenly put between himself and me, and whatever conclusion he drew made his jaw tighten in a way that had nothing to do with his usual playful jealousy.

"Coffee?" he offered instead, holding out one of the cups like a peace offering neither of us had asked for.