ANMELDEN~ Avelyn ~ The next thing I knew my back was against the wall of the suite. Xander’s pressure against me was immediate and total, his lips claiming mine with the kind of certainty that left no room for hesitation, not that I had any. His mouth moved like he’d been thinking about this through every course of that dinner, every loaded glance, every second of that insufferable composure he’d worn like a weapon all evening.I kissed him back with everything I had. Not that I had much of anything right now. I couldn’t with his scent knocking out my reasoning. His hands found my waist and wrapped it, found my jaw and gripped it, found my hair and filled his palm with a fistful. He was moving like he couldn’t decide where to settle and had chosen everywhere simultaneously and I felt the wall solid behind me and him solid in front of me and the combination of both was making it very difficult to remember that I was a person with thoughts.“Xander—”“Don’t.” His voice was low against my mou
~ Avelyn ~I stared at the sky. At the ring. At him. Xander Sterling on one knee with an expression that had shed every layer of composure and was simply, entirely open in a way I had never seen from him before and might never see again.“I know what we’ve been,” he said, quietly. “I know what I was. What I put you through.” His eyes didn’t leave mine. “I’m not asking you to forget it. I’m asking you to let me spend the rest of my life making it right.” A breath. “You and Ciara. That’s all I want. That’s everything.”The city hummed below us. The drones held their formation. The candles moved in some invisible current of air.I nodded.I was aware I was nodding with a frequency and enthusiasm that was not entirely dignified but I could not locate my words so nodding was what was available to me and I committed to it fully.Something moved across his face. Relief, maybe, or the particular expression of a man who’d been holding his breath for longer than he’d admitted to himself. He too
~ Avelyn ~I didn’t know what Xander was planning this time. But I knew it was deliberate on his part. I’d asked twice and received the same response both time. A look that communicated that the question had been heard and would not be answered so I’d stopped asking and spent the better part of the week in a state of low-grade anticipation that I refused to call nerves.It was nerves.The women arrived at four.Three of them, professional and efficient, with more equipment than I owned in my entire bathroom. They set up in my bedroom with the quiet competence of people who did this regularly and knew better than to ask unnecessary questions, and then they got to work.I sat in the chair they’d positioned by the window and let them.That was the strangest part. Normally I’d have something to say, some observation, some deflection, something to fill the space. But I sat quietly while hands moved through my hair and someone else opened a case of jewellery and a third laid out a dress o
~ Avelyn ~Shopping with Xander was an experience I was wholly unprepared for.It wasn’t that he was difficult. It was that he was thorough. Every aisle, every option, considered with the same focused attention he’d given Ciara an hour ago. He picked things up, examined them, made decisions with the quiet efficiency of a man who was accustomed to being right.He also kept putting things in the cart that I hadn’t asked for and then moving on before I could object, which was a technique I recognised and deeply resented.“She doesn’t need that,” I said, for approximately the fifth time.“She might.”“She’s not going to need a cashmere blanket, Xander.”“You don’t know that.” He defended“She’s going to spit up on it within forty minutes of—”“Then we’ll get another one.” He placed it in the cart and moved on and I stood there for a second before following, because that was the only available option.But there were also moments, small ones — where he’d stop and hold something up and lo
~ Avelyn ~I heard the cars before I saw them.That should have been my first warning.I’d just picked Ciara up from daycare, a decision I was still adjusting to, the particular guilt of leaving a seven month old with strangers because her mother had been spending her mornings standing outside a billionaire’s gate like a woman with nothing better to do and we’d barely been home twenty minutes when I heard the sound of multiple engines pulling onto my street.I went to the window.There were three black cars parked outside my house. And emerging from them, with the kind of coordinated efficiency that suggested military training or very generous tips, were men in suits carrying roses.Not a bouquet.Roses, plural. Dozens of them. Stem after stem after stem, deep red and perfect, filling my small front path like a garden had relocated itself overnight.I stood at the window with Ciara on my hip and watched and said nothing for a long moment.Of course. Of course he did.Xander stepped ou
— Xander —She was still here.I’d told her to wait for the rain. A practical reason. Temporary. The kind of thing that meant nothing and I needed it to mean nothing, so I stepped back from the door and from her and put the appropriate distance between us and became myself again.“Wait for it to pass.” I kept my back to her. Easier that way. “Then go.” A pause. “Don’t come back to the house. Don’t send letters to the gate. Don’t stop by the office.”Silence.I had expected argument. That was Avelyn’s native language with me, push, parry, challenge. What I hadn’t expected was the quality of the silence she gave me instead. Heavy and considering.“That’s it.” Her voice was quiet. Almost to herself.“Yes.”“A week.” I could hear her moving, not toward the door, toward me. “A whole week and that’s what you give me. A list of instructions and a wait for the rain.”“It’s straightforward enough.”“It’s nothing.” The word came out with more force than the ones before it. “You know what you
~ Avelyn ~The morning began with my own reflection staring me down. Pale, stubborn eyes, hair a mess, body aching in places I didn’t even know could ache. I stood in front of the mirror, whispering to myself like a lunatic giving a pep talk before the gallows.“You’ve survived worse,” I muttered.
~ Avelyn ~The door slammed behind me, hard enough to rattle the frame. My lungs were already tight, my throat closing in. The second I was inside my room, I didn’t even think — I just sprinted straight for the bathroom.The shower came alive with a violent twist of my wrist, water hissing against
~ Avelyn ~The mornings no longer startled me.At first, waking up before dawn felt like being yanked out of the grave, my bones stiff, my muscles screaming as though I’d fought a war in my sleep. But after a week of Ms. Freda’s merciless training, my body had started to anticipate it. My eyes open
~ Avelyn ~The silence stretched so long I could hear my own pulse in my ears. I didn’t answer him. Not that his words required an answer, but still, if there was anyone who wanted this, it was him.I stared at the monster-sized bed that had already eaten my evening and realized something. That mai







