Chapter Five

Palmer’s POV

The coffee shop still smelled like cinnamon and burnt caramel when I walked back in the next morning, as if the air itself remembered the moment my hand had brushed his. I told myself it was ridiculous — a dangerous, ridiculous thing to be thinking about — and yet my fingers kept going to my phone as if searching for a message that might as well have been a lifeline.

He was there, of course. The same easy posture, the same careless smile that felt like punctuation at the end of a sentence. He looked up and that smile widened, like he’d been waiting for me to return.

“Palmer.” He said my name like it was something sweet he’d found on a shelf and meant to keep.

I didn’t know why my heart clubbed so hard when he said it. 

“I thought maybe I should apologize for spilling coffee on your shirt,” I said, because small talk was a safe place to start. My voice sounded thinner than I wanted.

He laughed softly, and the sound tugged at something inside me that had been bruised and unused for a long time. “No need. I like a woman bold enough to ruin a perfectly good shirt.”

He introduced himself properly then — Andrew. Andrew. The name had a comfortable ring, like linen sheets. He had the kind of face people wrote about in magazines: high cheekbones, eyes that seemed to shift colors in indoor light. But it was his voice that held me. Warm. Uncomplicated. He listened like each sentence I offered was the most interesting thing he’d heard all day.

We talked for hours. About insignificant things at first: his job in design, the stupid things he’d tried to cook that almost burned his kitchen down, the book he’d been reading about old sea captains. He told me he wanted to travel, that there were maps on his bedroom wall and dates scribbled beside city names for no real reason. I told him the story of the company, careful with the edges, the way you tell a story to a child — soft, protective. He never pressed. He only nodded and reached for my hand once, accidentally, when we both laughed at the same joke.

It felt absurd to laugh so freely when my life was a ledger of obligations and fear. Yet there we were, two people sharing space that smelled of coffee and possibility. He made me feel less like a problem to be solved and more like a person who deserved a minute of ordinary kindness. It was something I’d been starving for without knowing how hungry I was.

“You should come by the gallery on Friday,” he said as we stood to leave. “We have a small opening. It’s nothing fancy. Just friends and music.”

I almost said no. I almost said I couldn’t — that my nights were scheduled and I would to   required to attend an event more like formal inspections than parties. What I almost said was true and it was also an excuse.

“I’ll try,” I answered, which was the closest to a lie and a promise I’d made in a long time.

*****

After Andrew left, I walked home with the ridiculous hope that something had shifted. The  free for the first time in a long time  — until I reached the long, black gates and the cold sculpture of the Dawson crest and the world snapped back into place. The gate opened and closed like a mouth, swallowing my small, fleeting courage whole.

Arrow was there that evening when I returned. He had been away for weeks, at least that’s what everyone had told me, and the sight of him standing by the study window was like a storm front rolling in. He looked exactly as he always looked — immaculately dressed — but I could see the small muscles along his jaw working when he spoke into the phone. His phone, the one he treated like the king treats a scepter.

He saw me. He didn’t need to look away for me to know he’d finished his call. The room smelled faintly of smoke and something expensive. He laid down his phone as if concluding a conversation about cattle prices and then turned to me with that small, practiced smile.

“Dinner will be at eight,” he said. No question, no invitation. It was a decree.

“Yes, sir.” My voice felt heavy in my mouth.

He stepped closer, enough that I could feel the heat from his body even through the thin fabric of my dress. I said nothing because words now felt like currency submerged in debt I couldn’t pay.

“You look… different,” he remarked, judging, as if I were an art piece being appraised.

“Is that a compliment?” I managed before the iron in his eyes turned my words into something brittle.

“Maybe,” he said, and there was a pause full of meaning. “You are to accompany me to the board event next week as my wife. I expect you to be prepared.”

Prepared for what, I wondered. To be the perfect mask? To parade in front of his associates like a trophy? My throat burned. There was no warmth in his tone. Only the calculation that had so many names: control, ownership, duty.

That night, when I tried to sleep, Andrew’s laugh hovered at the edges of my mind. I knew the idea of him would have consequences. People like Arrow did not tolerate surprises. People like Arrow had long memories and short tempers.

*******

The next morning there was a note on the kitchen counter in Arrow’s handwriting — clean, precise script. He never wrote anything that didn’t serve a plan. It read: Be home by nine. Don’t see anyone without my knowledge. I’ll be away for a couple days on business. Keep to the schedule.

The words felt like a leash. I crumpled the note in my fist, feeling ridiculous and small. My father needed the surgery, and every rule I broke now had the weight of his life balanced on it.

I told myself I would be careful. I told myself I could compartmentalize: a coffee at noon, a gallery at night, smiles that did not mean anything more than warmth. It was a lie I told so I could breathe.

Friday arrived with the steady drum of rain against the window. The gallery was tucked between an old tailor and a shuttered bakery, a sliver of light and canvas in a street that was otherwise jaded. Andrew met me at the door with a hand extended, and when I took it I felt like a child stepping onto an unsteady bridge.

The room hummed with low conversations and the clink of glasses. People drifted around us like planets in careful orbits; their attention skipped from painting to painting. Andrew introduced me — quietly, simply — to a handful of people. He never made a big show of me. He simply put me where I fit and said, “This is Palmer.”

We found a corner where the crowd thinned. He touched my arm — quick, an anchor — and asked about my father with the kind of concern that made my eyes sting. He told me about his mother, about the way she used to hum when she cooked, and I told him about the hospital smell that had become the perfume of my days.

We laughed. We danced, a little, to music that thudded like a slow heartbeat. For a few hours I was only Palmer, not a contract, not a promise, not a patient ledger balanced on the edge of collapse. I could see — with painful clarity — how easy it would be to fall into something I had no right to want and no claim to keep.

When we stepped out into the night, the rain had stopped. The street was dark but just bright even to see him,  Andrew looked at me with a softness I had almost forgotten existed in men. He leaned in as if to say something private.

“You’re in trouble, aren’t you?” he whispered.

My laugh came out like a sob. “You have no idea,” I said.

He didn't ask for details. He didn’t need them. He slid a small card into my palm — his name, a number, a line that read: If you ever need a place to breathe. No questions asked.

I tucked it into my pocket like contraband and walked home under a sky that seemed unreal.

The gate clicked behind me with its usual finality. Inside, the house was darker than usual, the portraits like witnesses with oil-painted eyes. I placed my hand over my heart and realized I had been holding my breath for days.

At the top of the stairs Arrow’s silhouette paused. He had returned earlier than he said. He was closer than before, leaning against the banister, watching me with an expression that made my skin crawl.

“Who were you with?” His voice didn't raise; it didn't need to. It was the kind of question that came with a verdict already written.

“Just a friend,” I answered.

He let out a small, measured laugh. “Do not lie to me, Palmer. I don’t like being lied to.”

His hand reached for the rail as if to steady himself and not toward me, but the message was clear. There was a coldness under the surface — a dormant current — and I shivered at the thought of how much it could do if given the chance.

I wanted to tell him everything. I wanted to tell him about the gallery and the card in my pocket and the way Andrew’s laugh made me lighter. I wanted to tell him that my father was dying of guilt and pride and bad investments and that I was only trying to keep him alive.

What I did instead was a small, careful thing. I smiled. It was a practiced smile, the kind that had been taught to me by necessity.

“Goodnight,” I said. Then I fled to my room like a thief.

All I could think about was Andrew, his charming voice, the way he called my name like it mattered... Don't have to pretend around him. Just been around him feels like I was at the right place.