Chapter 6: Kieran's Choice.

The woman wearing a white gown walked across the drawing room rug with her arms outstretched toward him.

Kieran Sterling moved to the right, moving out of the way before her fingers could touch his clothes.

Her hands dropped helplessly against her silk skirts as her lower lip trembled under the light of the crystal chandelier.

She pressed her open palm against her collarbone and took a breath, trying to steady herself while tears pooled in her eyes.

"I sneaked out at dawn because men were searching the hotel corridors for you," she said in between sobs. "Every step down that hotel staircase tore me apart, but I knew I had to keep your secret safe."

She paused, wiping her eyes with the back of her wrist.

"I have laid awake every night since then, praying you survived whatever poison they put in your glass."

Kieran walked a slow half-circle around her, stopping where the light fell across her face.

Honey-blonde hair fell over her shoulders in loose waves.

A heavy fragrance of engineered roses filled the space between them.

He drew the air into his lungs, but the scent only triggered a sharp spike of pain behind his right temple.

The pressure inside his head tightened like an iron band.

"Describe the room where we met," Kieran said, keeping his eyes fixed on her face.

"It was dark, with the heavy velvet curtains drawn tight against the streetlights," Celeste answered without hesitation. "You burned with a fever that night, Kieran. You held my wrist so tight that it left dark bruises for a week."

"Half the city knows I was drugged at that political dinner," Kieran replied, folding his arms. "A room description proves nothing. Bring me proof that you were the woman in that room."

Celeste fumbled with the clasp of her evening purse, her fingers slipping twice before she managed to open it.

She held out her palm. In the middle of it lay a single silver cufflink engraved with the initial S.

Kieran picked up the cool metal from her skin, turning it between his thumb and forefinger.

It was the exact same weight as the set in his dressing room.

"The housekeeper found the other half under the bed that morning," Celeste added softly, taking a step closer. "I kept this one close to me for days, waiting for news about you."

Kieran kept the cufflink between his fingers and turned toward the open doorway. "Owen."

Owen Pierce walked into the drawing room, looking down at his tablet. "Sir?"

"Check the hotel register for that night," Kieran ordered. "Every guest listed on the top floor."

"I checked this afternoon, sir," Owen reported, tapping the glass screen. "Miss Celeste Whitmore's name is on the guest registry for the top-floor suite, verified by the night manager and the housekeeping record."

Kieran looked from Owen's screen back to Celeste. The paper record named her, but his skull was throbbing with an unbearable ache in her presence. Every instinct in his body screamed that the paper was a lie.

Celeste let out a long breath, her shoulders relaxing.

She moved closer until the hem of her white dress brushed Kieran's shoe, reaching out to rest her hand against his jacket sleeve.

"Marry me," she urged, her voice dropping into a whisper. "You owe that night a life, Kieran, and I gave you mine without hesitation."

Kieran reached down, took her wrist, and pulled her hand off his arm.

"My signature sits on a marriage certificate already," he said, stepping back out of her reach.

Celeste's mouth parted as she stared at him. "You married someone else while I waited for you?"

"I signed a contract," Kieran corrected. "It runs for six months, and then my lawyers execute the divorce. Wait until the papers clear, and I will put a ring on your finger."

"Then let me stay here at Ravenhill Manor until then," Celeste pressed, pointing toward the grand staircase in the hallway. "Your contract wife can keep her room in the servants' wing, and I will take a guest room. I just want to be near you."

"Go home to your father tonight," Kieran said, turning toward his study across the hall. "Owen will drive you back."

Before leaving the room, Kieran pressed the silver cufflink back into her palm.

He walked across the hallway without looking back, ignoring her calls as he shut his study door behind him.

Inside his study, Kieran poured two fingers of whiskey into a glass and drank it in one swallow.

His eyes burned from tiredness, and the print on his corporate contracts blurred on the page before him.

He set the empty glass down with a heavy clatter and called his doctor's private line.

"The insomnia is getting worse," Kieran said the moment Dr. Nathan Hughes answered. "The pressure behind my eyes is getting unbearable."

"Did you find the woman from the Meridian Grand Hotel?" Dr. Hughes asked over the line.

"She stood in my drawing room twenty minutes ago," Kieran said, staring at his reflection in the dark window pane. "And my head hurts worse now than it did this morning."

"Did she touch you?"

"Her hand was on my arm for nearly a minute," Kieran replied, his grip tightening on the phone. "And I felt zero relief. The pain didn't shift at all."

"Physical contact is only part of it, Kieran," Dr. Hughes explained. "Proximity, skin contact, breath, and the natural scent they carry all play a role. True carriers of the rare HR-negative blood trait carry a natural scent that calms the central nervous system of the person matched to them—"

"I know what a neural carrier is, Nathan," Kieran cut in, his voice tight. "Tell me why a woman whose name is on the hotel register makes my head feel like it's going to explode."

"Because if her presence doesn't calm your nervous system, she isn't the carrier," Dr. Hughes answered plainly. "Paper records can be bought or forged, Kieran. Biological compatibility cannot. If she doesn't soothe your pain, she wasn't the woman in that room."

Kieran froze.

The memory from the cemetery hit him with sudden, violent clarity.

He remembered holding Iris against his chest after her mother's funeral—how her soft scent of orange blossoms had filled his lungs, and how the blinding, unbearable pressure in his head had vanished the exact second his arm wrapped around her waist.

If Iris's scent was the only thing that cured his pain, then Iris was the neural carrier.

And if Iris was the carrier, then Iris was the woman who had stayed with him in Room 1606 that night.

"Kieran? Are you still there?" Dr. Hughes asked.

"My grandmother," Kieran muttered, his eyes tracking up toward the ceiling. "What did she order upstairs?"

"She called my office an hour ago to request an urgent blood test for your contract bride," Dr. Hughes replied. "She wants the certified lab results sent to Ravenhill Manor before Thursday morning."

Kieran hung up the phone. His grandmother already suspected something about Iris.

He crossed the study, opened the door, and went up the grand staircase two steps at a time.

The second-floor hallway was quiet under the wall lights.

Outside the master bedroom, Eleanor's senior maid, Miriam, stood with her hands folded over her apron, holding a heavy iron key.

"Where is my grandmother?" Kieran asked, stopping in front of her.

"Mrs. Sterling went to her room for the night, sir," Miriam answered, stepping away from the double doors. "She told me to lock the master suite from the outside once your wife was inside."

"Give me the key," Kieran said.

Miriam handed the key to him and bowed her head before walking down the hall.

Kieran put the key into the lock, turned it until the bolt clicked back, and opened the door into the dark room.