Page 99 of Stolen Harmony
“Right,” he said. “Terrifying and impossible and completely right.”
I felt something shift in my chest, some wall I'd been keeping up crumbling under the weight of his honesty. Because that was exactly how it felt for me too. Right in a way that defied logic, that made all the complications seem manageable if it meant we could keep having moments like this.
“I keep thinking about her,” I said, because it felt important to acknowledge the elephant in the room, the woman whose memory was woven into both our lives in ways that made this more complicated than it would have been with anyone else.
“So do I.” Elias's voice was steady, matter-of-fact. “I think about what she'd say, what she'd think, whether she'd be angry or understanding or somewhere in between.”
“What do you think she'd say?”
He was quiet for a moment, considering. “I think she'd be surprised. Maybe worried about us hurting each other. But I don't think she'd be angry. She always said love was too rare to waste on fear.”
The words settled between us like a benediction, permission we'd both been needing but hadn't known how to ask for. Because maybe this wasn't a betrayal of her memory. Maybe it was just two broken people finding a way to heal together, to build something new on the foundation of shared loss.
“I don't know how to do this,” I admitted. “I don't knowhow to be in a relationship that isn't just about sex or convenience or mutual destruction. I don't know how to want something healthy.”
“Neither do I,” Elias said, and there was relief in his voice, like my confusion made his own feel more manageable. “I was married for three years, but before that, all my relationships were disasters. I'm not exactly an expert on making things work.”
We drifted toward sleep in the quiet after that, not touching but close enough that the warmth between our bodies felt like a promise neither of us was ready to say out loud. The apartment settled around us, old wood creaking in the wind, pipes ticking as they cooled, the ordinary sounds of a building that had sheltered other people's secrets for longer than either of us had been alive.
I lay there listening to Elias's breathing even out, to the steady rhythm that told me he'd found sleep despite everything that had just changed between us. Part of me wanted to reach out, to close the small distance between us and anchor myself to his warmth. But part of me was afraid that too much contact too soon would break whatever fragile thing we'd just built.
Outside, Harbor's End was settling into another night, another day survived, another step forward into a future that felt more uncertain and more possible than anything I'd imagined when I'd first come back to this place. Somewhere in the darkness, people were living their ordinary lives, having ordinary problems, making ordinary choices that didn't require them to question everything they'd thought they knew about themselves.
Chapter 20
The Quiet Rooms
Victor
The house wasn't on any map that mattered. It sat behind a curtain of old cypress at the edge of Harbor's End, a long, low sprawl of dark glass and older stone, built to swallow sound. The gates recognized my car and folded inward like a secret. Gravel ticked under the tires. Somewhere far off, the ocean rehearsed its one line, over and over.
I took my time crossing the foyer. The floors were old wood, blackened and oiled; my reflection followed me in the night-dark windows. Lamps came on ahead of me at a polite, moneyed brightness. The quiet here was curated, deliberate—like the rest of my life.
I passed the library—spines like teeth in the dim—then the music room with its immaculate, unused grand. The house smelled faintly of lemon oil and wool and a memory of smoke long since aired out. By the time I reached the private hall, my day had slid off me cleanly, the public smile stored where I kept other necessary masks.
Outside my office, Ms. Penrose rose from her desk, neat as a ledger column. “Mr. Grant?—”
“Has my father been taken care of?” I asked, already reaching for the door.
A hesitation, barely there. “He's early,” she said. “He's already inside.”
The corner of my mouth tilted. Of course he was.
I opened the door to find Kepler seated in the pair of leather chairs by the window, a tumbler in his hand he had no business with anymore. The old man wore the house like a borrowed coat: familiar lines, an uneasy fit. The light cut in at an angle, turning his profile into an etching—long nose, stubborn jaw, eyes that had once taught me how to measure a room without moving.
“Hello, Dad,” I said, gliding in. I set my briefcase on the credenza, let my fingertips rest a beat on the cool walnut of the desk, then took the chair beside him rather than the power seat behind the brass blotter. A choice, and the older man would see it for what it was.
“You didn't tell me you were coming,” I added, legs crossing with lazy elegance.
His mouth flattened. “It's hard to get an appointment with you these days unless I call your assistant.”
“Ms. Penrose is excellent,” I said. “She keeps the circus to a minimum.” I nodded at the glass. “You shouldn't be drinking.”
“You shouldn't be doing half the things you do,” he said, not loudly. He set the tumbler down, untouched. “So here we are.”
I smiled, as if the jab had been a pleasantry. “Here we are.”
We let the silence work. It settled into the seams of the room, familiar as an old argument.
