Chapter 57: The Shoreline Promise

Daphne’s pov

Late at night, I couldn't sleep, so I decided to take a walk, thinking I needed to clear my head.

The beach was quiet, with only the sound of waves moving back and forth against the shore.

I walked slowly along the sand, hugging my arms around myself because the night air was cold. My mind would not stay calm. Everything from earlier kept replaying again and again. The kiss. The confusion. Cassian’s sudden closeness. And the way he looked at me like I mattered more than I should.

I kept telling myself it meant nothing. Just a mistake. Just heat of the moment.

But my heart didn’t agree.

I walked further down the shoreline until I was far from the house, almost out of sight. That was when I saw him.

Cassian was sitting on the sand alone.

His elbows rested on his knees and he was staring out at the ocean like he had been there for a long time. He didn’t look like the Cassian everyone feared at Crestwood. He looked calm. Tired in a quiet way.

I stopped for a second, unsure if I should turn back.

But he spoke first. “Can’t sleep?” His voice was low, calm.

I hesitated, then walked closer anyway. “Yeah,” I said softly. “Can’t sleep.”

I stopped a few steps away from him, watching him carefully. He didn’t look surprised to see me. He just patted the sand lightly beside him.

I sat down, but not too close.

For a moment, neither of us spoke. The waves filled the silence between us.

I kept my eyes on the water, but my thoughts were on him.

Then I finally said it. “Why did you kiss me?”

Cassian didn’t answer right away. He just kept looking at the ocean like he was thinking too deeply about something he had been holding in for a long time.

I turned my head slightly toward him. “Why did you kiss me,” I repeated, quieter now, “if you knew I liked someone else?”

That time, he looked at me.

His eyes were steady, but there was something different in them. Something honest.

“I knew,” he said.

My chest tightened.

“So why?”

He leaned back slightly on his hands, looking up at the sky for a moment before speaking again.

“I should have stayed away from you,” he said. “I tried. For a long time.”

I didn’t speak. I just listened.

“I told myself I didn’t care about anything like this,” he continued. “Relationships. Feelings. All of it. I didn’t want it in my life.”

He paused, then looked at me again.

“But it didn’t work.”

My heart beat faster, but I didn’t move.

Cassian’s voice stayed calm, but it was heavier now.

“I used to be someone who lived inside anger,” he said. “Revenge, too. That was all I understood for a long time. That was all I had.”

He looked away again at the ocean. “I thought that was enough to survive on.”

The wind moved between us. I stayed quiet.

“But then I met you,” he said.

I froze slightly.

Cassian didn’t look at me when he said it. Like it was easier that way.

“And I didn’t understand it,” he continued. “Because every time I was around you, it stopped. The anger. The noise in my head. It all went quiet.”

I didn’t know what to say.

He finally turned his head toward me again.

“I started noticing I didn’t want to stay away,” he said. “Even when I told myself I should.”

My throat felt tight.

“So I tried to keep distance,” he added. “I really did. But it never lasted.”

I looked down at the sand between us, my fingers digging into it slightly.

Cassian’s voice dropped lower.

“You make things feel different for me, Daphne.”

My breath caught at my name on his lips.

He continued, slower now.

“I kissed you because I couldn’t keep pretending I didn’t want you there.”

I stared at him, trying to understand what I was hearing.

Cassian Thorne. The same guy everyone called cold. Dangerous. Unreachable. But sitting here, he didn’t feel like that. He just felt… real.

My mind started spinning.

I didn’t say anything.

I couldn’t.

Cassian watched me carefully, like he was waiting for something. An answer. A reaction. Anything.

But I had nothing. Because everything inside me felt confused. I stood up slowly, brushing sand off my hands.

“I need to go,” I said quietly.

Cassian didn’t stop me.

He didn’t reach for me, He just stayed where he was, sitting on the sand, watching me.

I turned and walked away.

The further I got, the heavier everything felt. And I didn’t know what to do with it.