No one knows when you're in my arms

Hector felt Jeanne's arms tightening around him—not with affection, but with a desperate need to disappear. Her body leaned into his as though she wished to dissolve into his skin, to vanish from sight completely. There was no hesitation in her voice when she whispered again, more urgently this time, “Hide me, Hector. Please… just hide me.”

His confusion shifted quickly into alertness. “Jeanne,” he murmured, trying to draw back to see her face, but she resisted, clutching his coat. “What’s going on? Are you alright?”

“Just… don’t let go. Hide me,” she repeated, her voice barely audible, trembling with something far more than cold.

He didn’t push for more answers. Instead, he swept open his heavy winter coat and wrapped it around her as if shielding her from a storm. One arm braced her protectively, the other scanned their surroundings with sharp calculation. That’s when he caught her murmured explanation.

“The officer,” she said, her voice caught somewhere between fear and recognition. “In front of the candy store... we stopped there earlier—he’s Edgar’s friend. He might be here for me.”

Hector followed her line of sight, and there—across the street, beside the window stacked with pastel boxes and peppermint jars—stood a uniformed officer conversing with two locals. His presence didn’t seem conspicuous to anyone but Jeanne, but Hector saw it through her eyes, and that was enough. The officer’s head turned, glancing vaguely toward their direction, but a sudden influx of pedestrians crowded the sidewalk, blocking his view.

Instinct took over. Hector’s jaw set as his arm shifted to guide Jeanne away without drawing attention. There was no hesitation in his stride, his body acting as a shield as they navigated through the growing crowd, his coat still enveloping her. Every movement was precise, purposeful—his eyes never stopped sweeping the area until they reached the safety of the car.

Once inside, the doors shut with a muted thud, sealing out the world. Jeanne sat in silence, still holding her arms close to her chest, her breath shaky, her gaze unfocused.

Hector studied her quietly. He’d seen Jeanne unsettled, quiet, even distraught—but never like this. Something deeper had cracked. Her fingers clenched and unclenched on her lap, trying to anchor herself back into the present. Hector watched her closely—her every breath, every flutter of her lashes, the way she swallowed like words were caught in her throat. Slowly, he reached for her hand. She didn’t resist. His grip was firm yet gentle, grounding.

“You're safe now,” he said, his voice steady, threaded with certainty. “No one will find you, not while you're in my arms.”

Jeanne looked at him, her eyes glassy and unsure. “I… just thought maybe Edgar really is looking for me,” she confessed, her voice cracking slightly under the weight of her thoughts. “I used to believe he wouldn’t bother… that he was too busy or too proud to search for me. It felt like a bitter irony, you know? But now I think… maybe he has sent people. Like before, when he ordered his subordinates to track me down. I don’t know why I’m shaking like this. I don’t want to see him. I can’t explain how I feel.”

Her hand pulled away as she buried her face in her palms, overwhelmed. The turbulence of her emotions, the shadows of her past, and perhaps—she thought—these hormonal changes from her pregnancy were amplifying her reaction. Part of her regretted the desperation with which she clung to Hector moments ago. Perhaps she had overreacted. Perhaps she was making too much of something she had long tried to suppress.

But Hector, ever attuned to her, gently unfolded her hands and coaxed her gaze back to his. His expression was calm, undemanding, and reassuring. “It’s alright, Jeanne. That wasn’t too much. And you don’t have to explain everything. Not to me.”

Then, with a tenderness that didn’t ask, but offered, he leaned forward and kissed her.

The kiss was not rushed nor laced with desire—it was soft, deliberate, a gesture of comfort rather than conquest. It pressed against her uncertainty like a balm, easing her frozen tension. In the dead of winter, his lips felt like the promise of spring. Jeanne let herself be kissed. She let his warmth thaw the cold that had crept up her spine. His lips moved carefully, coaxing, not demanding—gently drawing breath from her that she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

She was no expert at this, no seductress or skilled player in emotional chess—but she could be fair. She responded, shyly at first, then more firmly, matching his rhythm with a soft sip of his lower lip, her fingers tightening around his. In that moment, she needed the closeness more than she feared the consequences. If she regretted it later, she would carry that weight. But now, she gave herself permission to feel safe. To feel wanted. To let Hector soothe her in the only language he knew.

His kiss moved from her lips to her cheek, then traced a reverent line toward her ear, then her neck—each touch light and warm, barely grazing the surface of her skin.

That was when Jeanne’s hand found his shoulder, applying a subtle pressure—not harsh, not panicked, just enough.

He pulled back immediately, breath steady, eyes meeting hers not with guilt but with care. “Sorry,” he murmured. “That was too far.”

Jeanne’s reply came soft, breathy. “It’s okay.” Her cheeks flushed—not with shame, but with the residual heat of something human and alive.

Hector turned his face toward the rearview mirror, a flicker of something sharp overtaking his features. Jeanne noticed the shift instantly, how his jaw stiffened, how his pupils narrowed.

“What is it?” she asked, her voice tentative.

“Jeanne,” he said without looking at her, his tone low and precise, “I need you to hold on tight now.”

She blinked, confused, until he started the engine. The sudden roar and lurch of the car startled her, but she obeyed, grabbing onto the handlebar with her left hand—her right still enveloped in Hector’s.

The tires screeched slightly as the car surged forward into traffic, leaving behind the quiet side street. Jeanne’s breath caught as Hector maneuvered through cars with speed and control, and she didn’t have time to ask.

***

Night had long since fallen, but sleep refused to visit Hector. In his true bedroom—a space cloaked in shadow and stillness—only the silver cast of the moon pouring through the large window behind his desk illuminated the room. A single cigarette smoldered between his fingers, its smoke curling lazily around him, the only witness to his unrest. Outside, the tide licked the shoreline in a calm, repetitive hush, but Hector’s eyes were transfixed on the old photograph crumpled slightly in his grip.

The woman in the picture stared back with a soft expression that belied the storm currently circling in Hector’s mind. His gaze was unreadable—an amalgamation of pain, regret, and memories left unnamed. With a long breath, he sat on the edge of his desk, facing the moonlit sea, his silhouette outlined by the faint blue light.

“So I was right…” he murmured, barely above a whisper, the corner of his lips twitching into a bitter smile. “How could I possibly forget this?”

His jaw tightened, and his fingers curled almost violently around the photo’s edges as though punishing himself for the lapse. A moment later, he forced himself to ease his grip, sliding the picture into a drawer already crowded with disordered papers—things he hadn’t been ready to face until now.

Hector left the room, locking the door behind him. His intent was simple: to get a glass of water. But just as he reached the landing at the top of the stairs, a voice—gentle, melodic, almost otherworldly—floated through the silence. He halted mid-step, frowning. Anyone else might have thought it was a ghost. But Hector was never a man who believed in such things.

The sound was coming from Jeanne’s room. Her door hadn’t been fully closed, and through the narrow gap, Hector saw her—not walking, but almost dancing, barefoot and light, tracing the patterned carpet as though following a secret choreography only she knew.

She was singing. A lullaby. An old, familiar one—something mothers might hum to the children they hadn’t yet met. One hand stroked the small curve of her belly, her face serene, as though all the anxieties that plagued her had been washed away in that moment of imagined motherhood.

Hector didn’t speak. He didn’t move. He watched, struck by how soft she looked, how natural she seemed in that role. The song repeated, again and again, as though each round stitched her a little closer to the hope that lived within her. Jeanne wasn’t just preparing for the birth of her child—she was yearning for it, deeply, achingly, as if it was the only thing anchoring her to life itself.

He smiled then, unthinking. A quiet smile, touched with something tender and distant. But the warmth didn’t last. As he watched her, it struck him—this wasn’t a moment born of joy alone. There was something else underneath: loss, perhaps, or guilt forced upon her by others. But more than anything, Hector saw a fragile hope. Jeanne’s dream wasn’t penance—it was pure. It was a longing to love, and to be loved, without conditions or shadows of the past.

And because he understood that kind of longing far too well, his smile faded.

He was about to walk away, give her back the privacy of that moment, when the sharp knock of her toe against the wooden leg of a chair made a loud thud. Jeanne winced, startled, and before she could steady herself, Hector had pushed open the door.

“Jeanne!” His voice rang with alarm, stronger than he intended.