Chapter 133
Rowan's POV
The apartment had settled into a rhythm during the day—the kind of tense, careful choreography two people create when they're trying to coexist without colliding.
Lena worked. I tracked Marcus.
We circled each other like satellites, pulled together by necessity but maintaining our orbits.
"Maybe being friends is enough."
Her words from that dinner still echoed at odd moments. She'd said it so calmly, with such genuine relief, as if naming our new boundaries had given her permission to breathe easier.
It had felt like a door closing. Softly, but final.
Now it was ten PM, and I was sitting in the living room with my laptop open, pretending to review Colin's latest report on Silverpine's European accounts. The words blurred together. All I could focus on was that closed door and the silence behind it.
She needs routine. Normalcy. Don't let her disappear into work.
Dr. Taylor's voice cut through the noise in my head—calm, firm, impossible to ignore. After our last session, when Lena had recounted her grandfather's murder in a voice so carefully controlled it made my chest tighten, the doctor had pulled me aside.
"She's going to try to manage this the only way she knows how," Dr. Taylor had said quietly. "By working. By building cases and strategies until she's too exhausted to feel. Don't let her. Make her eat. Make her sleep. Give her moments where she doesn't have to be the warrior."
I'd promised I would.
But keeping that promise meant crossing the invisible line Lena had drawn between us two days ago over duck and roasted vegetables—the one that redefined us as friends, colleagues, nothing more.
I looked at my laptop screen, then back at the study door.
Fuck the line.
I stood, stretched, trying to make it look casual as I walked toward her door.
The study door was slightly ajar. I knocked lightly. "Lena? Still working?"
She glanced up, eyes red-rimmed from screen glare. "Almost done."
Her attention immediately returned to the monitor, fingers resuming their rhythm across the keyboard. She hadn't registered that I'd stepped inside.
"How long have you been at this?" I moved closer, keeping my voice conversational.
"Three hours?" She rubbed her temples without looking up. "Maybe four."
I was behind her chair now. Close enough to see the Interpol report on her screen, dense paragraphs of legalese documenting Marcus's crimes. Close enough to smell the faint lavender of her shampoo.
Close enough to test whether her body still remembered mine.
I leaned forward, bracing both hands on the desk's edge on either side of her, caging her in. My breath stirred the hair at her nape. "This is the Silverpine asset structure?"
Her shoulders went rigid.
I watched it happen—the way her breathing hitched, fingers freezing mid-keystroke. The delicate muscles of her neck pulled taut, that vulnerable curve I'd kissed a hundred times now exposed and tense.
"Yes," she managed, voice tighter than normal. "Diana sent it over."
I didn't move. Pointed at something on the screen instead, letting my arm brush past her shoulder. "This timeline doesn't match the wire transfer dates."
She swallowed. I saw her throat work, saw her knuckles go white where she gripped the mouse. She was holding perfectly still, as if movement might shatter whatever control she was clinging to.
There.
That was the answer I'd been searching for since her careful smile at dinner yesterday, her gentle assertion that "friends" was enough. Her body was screaming what her words refused to say.
She hadn't let go. Not completely.
My pulse kicked up, satisfaction curling through my chest even as guilt followed close behind. I was using her reactions to feed something territorial and possessive, something that had no place in the boundaries she'd tried to set.
But Christ, I needed to know.
"Rowan." Her voice cracked slightly. She finally pushed back from the desk, chair wheels scraping loud in the quiet room. When she stood and turned, there was color high in her cheeks, her eyes bright with something between anger and panic. "You're standing too close."
I raised my hands, stepping back. "Sorry. Didn't realize."
The lie tasted sour. I'd known exactly what I was doing.
"I'm just concerned about you," I added, softening my expression into something that might pass for innocent worry. "Dr. Taylor said you need to pace yourself."
Lena closed her eyes, drew a long breath through her nose. When she opened them again, the lawyer was back—cool, controlled, impenetrable.
"I'm aware." She sat again, deliberately pulling the chair forward to widen the space between us. "Ten more minutes, then I'll sleep."
Her gaze returned to the screen. Dismissal, clear as a slammed door.
"Goodnight, Rowan."
I should've left immediately. Instead I paused at the threshold, looked back.
Her spine was rigid, shoulders still tense. She wasn't typing. Just staring at the monitor, waiting for me to leave.
"Goodnight, Lena."
I closed the door softly behind me.
---
In the hallway, I leaned against the wall, eyes falling shut.
She hadn't let go.
The hitch in her breath. The frozen hands. The way she'd pushed away from me like I was fire and she was trying not to get burned. Every micro-response had told the truth her words refused.
My mouth curved despite myself.
Then the smile faded, replaced by something heavier. What the hell was I doing—using her involuntary reactions to satisfy my own need for proof that she still felt something? Testing her boundaries like some kind of predator circling wounded prey?
But the voice in my head that whispered at least there's still a chance drowned out the guilt.
I pushed off the wall and headed for the guest room, but sleep felt impossible. Behind that closed study door, Lena was probably gripping the desk edge, trying to calm her racing pulse, furious at herself for responding to me at all.
And I was here, alone in the dark, equal parts ashamed and encouraged by the same truth:
Whatever she'd tried to bury between us wasn't dead yet.