At breakfast, across the table.
At dinner, half-listening while reading documents.
In hallways, walking without sound.
In doorways, filling space like he had negotiated with gravity personally.
On the third day, I snapped.
I had tried calling my father ten times. Ten. Every call failed.
I rounded the corner of the upstairs hall and nearly hit Roman coming the other way. Folder under one arm. Jacket off. Shirt sleeves rolled.
Perfect.
I shoved both palms into his chest.
Not hard enough to hurt him. Hard enough to say everything I couldn’t say to the walls.
“You don’t get to put me in a cage and expect gratitude.”
He moved fast.
My wrists were in his hands before I took another breath. He turned me cleanly, pressed me back against the wall, and leaned close enough that I felt the heat of him before I let myself notice anything else.
His voice, when he spoke, was low and almost gentle.
“Do that again and I’ll move you to a room without windows.”
My heart slammed against my ribs.
“Try it,” I said. “Next time I’ll aim better.”
His eyes locked on mine.
For two seconds—just two—something naked flickered there. Not anger. Not cruelty.
Respect.
It made my pulse stumble for reasons I didn’t want to examine.
Then he released me and stepped back.
“That,” he said, “was unwise.”
“Kidnapping me wasn’t exactly thoughtful either.”
His jaw tightened. “You should stop confusing me with every man you’ve ever hated.”
“And you should stop acting like you’re not one more powerful man making choices for a woman without asking her.”
That landed.
He went very still.
Then he said, “Noted,” and walked away.
That should have been the moment I decided to hate him properly.
Instead, it was the moment everything became more complicated.
Because the next morning Cora informed me, with suspicious casualness, that the garden was available “if fresh air would help.”
I went immediately.
The garden was larger than it had looked from upstairs. Sun-warmed stone. Roses opening in the heat. A central fountain whose steady splash worked against the noise in my head better than therapy ever had. I took a history book from the library, sat in the grass without caring about my dress, and let my body unclench for the first time in days.
I didn’t hear Roman approach.
I felt him.
Some people enter a space with noise. He entered by changing the pressure of it.
“You move differently out here,” he said.
I opened my eyes. He was standing by the fountain without his jacket, sleeves rolled to his forearms, looking less armored than I had ever seen him.
