로그인Daphne's POVEli has a plan for how to have this conversation, which is to avoid it.I know because he's been at the kitchen island for twenty minutes doing a very thorough job of rearranging the fruit bowl. It's Sunday afternoon, the house is quiet, and Julian has taken Lily to the park so the two of us can have the place to ourselves. Every few minutes my brother glances at the folder under my hand, then at the window, then back at the fruit."You're going to bruise the apples," I say."I'm organizing.""By what?""Feelings." He sets a pear down very precisely. "This one's nervous."I laugh before I can stop myself, and he grins, caught, and finally slides onto the stool across from me. He's taller than he was last month. I'm almost sure of it. He sits with his elbows on the counter and his hair falling in his eyes, fourteen and pretending he isn't scared, and my heart does the small, painful thing it always does when I look at him."Okay," he says. "Ask me.""I haven't said anythin
Julian's POVThe barn is still a blackened frame against the sky, and beside it, stacked in neat piles under a tarp, is the new lumber.I park at the end of the gravel drive and sit for a minute with the engine off. Luca's men are on the road behind me, far enough back to give me the quiet I asked for. The fields roll out brown and bare in the late-autumn light, and a thin line of smoke rises from the farmhouse chimney, straight and ordinary, as though nothing has ever happened here.My grandfather is on the porch before I'm out of the car.He's leaning on the railing with his coffee, in the same worn canvas coat he's worn my whole life. He looks smaller than he did before the fire. He doesn't say anything until I've climbed the steps, and then he looks me over with the slow, sharp attention of a man who has been reading faces for seventy years."You've been in a fight.""A few weeks ago.""It's still on your face." He jerks his chin at the door. "Come in. Your grandmother's got pie,
Julian's POVAt ten past one in the morning, someone is in my kitchen.I know it's Eli before I reach the doorway. He moves around this house like he's apologizing to it, soft-footed and careful, closing cabinet doors with both hands. The light over the stove is on, and he's standing at the counter in a faded T-shirt and sweatpants, a spoon in his hand and an open box of cereal beside him that he doesn't seem to be eating.I stop in the doorway. I came down for water, and I'd also like to tell myself that, because the truth is I haven't slept properly since the doctor's office."Can't sleep?"He jumps, then scowls at himself for jumping. "No.""Me neither.""Great." He turns back to the cereal. "You can leave. I'm fine."I don't leave. I get a glass from the cabinet, fill it at the tap, and lean against the counter at a polite distance, the way you'd stand near a nervous animal you don't want to spook. Eli crunches a mouthful of cereal without looking at me. The refrigerator hums. Out
Julian's POVLily has been watching Daphne's plate for ten minutes.It's Saturday morning, and pancakes are on the table, the chocolate chip kind that have apparently become a weekend law. Daphne has taken exactly two bites of hers and pushed the rest around with her fork, one hand resting on the table as if she's bracing for a wave to pass. Lily, seated between us with syrup on her chin, has stopped eating entirely."Mommy," she says. "Is your tummy still silly?"Daphne's fork stops. Across the table, her eyes meet mine.This is the third time Lily has noticed. Last week it was the bathroom. Yesterday it was the cracker Daphne ate in the car. Daphne told me last night, in the dark, that she hates lying to her, that every small fib feels like a stone dropped into a well that will someday need to be climbed back out of. I told her we'd decide together. We decided, I think, without either of us saying the word.Daphne sets down her fork. "Lily, sweetheart. Can we tell you something?"Li
Daphne “You’re freezing,” he murmurs.“You’re not.”“I’m very warm.” His mouth finds the line of my jaw, then my throat, just under my ear. “You should be warmer.”“Is that a suggestion?”“It’s a proposal.”I laugh, breathless, and slide my fingers into his hair. He walks me backward a step, and then another, until my shoulders meet the rough, deep furrows of the oak. The bark presses cool through my coat. His body shields me from the wind. The stars wheel overhead.“Here?” I whisper, with a glance toward the dark silhouettes at the edge of the grounds.“They’ve been told to keep their backs turned.” There’s a smile in his voice. “I may have planned for this.”“You planned this?”“I planned for hot chocolate and a proposal.” His thumb traces my lower lip. “The rest I’m improvising.”I should be shocked. Instead I’m lit up from the inside, every nerve awake, my heartbeat loud in my ears. I reach for the buttons of his coat and he catches my wrist, pressing a kiss into my palm, then dr
Daphne's POV"Come walk with me," Julian says, holding out my coat.It's past ten. Eli has gone up to bed, Lily is at her mother's this weekend, and the house has gone quiet in the way it only does when the day finally lets go of it. I look at the coat, then at him, and see that he's already wearing his own, a thermos tucked under one arm and a look on his face like a man who's been planning something and is trying not to show it."It's freezing.""It's cold. There's a difference." He drapes the coat over my shoulders and does up the top button himself. "Trust me.""You say that a lot lately.""And you keep coming anyway."I take his hand.The estate at night is a different place. The gravel path crunches under our feet, and the old lanterns Julian’s grandmother must have chosen decades ago cast soft gold pools along the edge of the garden. Past the hedges, the lawn rolls away toward a line of dark trees, and above them the sky is enormous and clear, scattered with more stars than the







