Evening comes fast like the clock is running a race it refuses to lose. The guests begin to thin out and I am finally directed to my old room. I am so exhausted, like the world has been placed on my body, and this has nothing to do with the flight.

One thing that strikes me most is the room is still the same as I left it, its pale walls and high ceiling remain unchanged. I look at the window and I am back in those old good days, sitting on the ledge as a teenager, pretending I am somewhere else. And the dresser, I see fresh flowers on it, I guess someone bought them and placed them there. White roses. I stare at them for a while and look away before I find myself pulled back into the beauty they radiate effortlessly.

Then.

I sit on the side of the bed to calculate my decision clearly.

I will simply be civil. I will be distant, composed and formal. I will attend the final funeral burial tomorrow, and I will pay my last respects to the only Steele who was ever sincerely kind to me. Afterwards, I will get into the car and go back to my life, the real life I left before coming here to stir memories of the life I have buried in my mind. The real life I constructed from scratch with my own two hands.

My wolf makes a sound at the back of my mind to get my attention. A low, unimpressed sound.

I ignore it immediately and lie down.

To sleep feels like war. Sleep feels so distant from my eyes, miles away, as though I have to struggle just to take part in the natural blessing given to the living. My body wants it, but my wolf resists it, restless and awake when I should be slipping under the soft arms of sleep, singing its warmth in my ears.I drift in and out of a thin imagination, very aware of the house around me. The sounds, the creaks, the silences. And the way the corridor outside my door carries footsteps if one listens closely enough. Even then, I am not sure I am the only one listening.

And I think that is why, at a time I am sure is past midnight, I hear them.

One step at a time, moving slowly like a snail, creating the rhythm of a gentle walker who is not lost, a walker who knows exactly where they are heading.I know those footsteps like a hunter knows the walk of their prey.

My wolf is already vigilant, standing on its feet inside me, and my heart rate climbs like the wolf within has pushed the gear to a very high speed. I sit up in the dark, waiting, until the footsteps stop outside my door, and what follows next is…

Silence.

And immediately, I get up like I am conditioned to act rather than by my own will. I do not know why I get up or what I am meant to do, or if I am simply refusing to admit it out loud. My hand finds the door handle in the dark and I pull it open.The corridor is dark, and the only source of light comes from a wall lamp burning at the far end, casting everything in an amber shadow. And there he is, Dominic Steele standing close enough for my nostrils to catch his scent again immediately, cedar and a warmer aroma underneath. His jaw is tight, alongside his unpredictable eyes. From the way he is looking, I would not be wrong to say he has been standing outside that door for a while, arguing with himself, and now he has finally lost.

He opens his mouth.

And pronounces my name.

That's all.Just, “Sophie.”

“I needed to be sure you were real.”

That is what he utters next after pronouncing my name like he is the priest in charge when I was christened, standing in my doorway at midnight like he has lost an argument with himself. The sentence falls from his mouth, gentle and flat, with no iota of explanation attached, no apology. And he makes it seem like it is the most normal thing in the world to show up outside my door at midnight after a good seven years of nothing and express himself here like it is supposed to wow me.I stare at him.

He holds my look in his eyes for a while. Then he suddenly deviates from what I expect from him. He turns and walks away without saying goodbye. I am about to respond to his statement, but as it stands, he is leaving without a dramatic exit. I hear his footsteps moving back down the dark corridor. The darkness swallows his visibility. I am standing all by myself in my doorway, holding the door handle like it is the only thing I have got to survive what just happened right now.I shut the door behind me. .Then. I stand with my back against the door, using it as support, resting into it. I press my palm flat on my breasts, trying to calm this restless breathing of my heart.

Regardless, it does not stop.

I find sleep, but sleep does not find me. While I am searching for it, I lie on top of the covers, stare at the ceiling, watch the hours run.

wolf walks within me throughout the whole night, back and forth, unrelenting, cool to a degree I have no patience to manage. Every time I close my eyes, I see his face. I imagine the way he looked at me in the doorway like I am a prodigal wife who left him, whom he has been searching for, and now that he has found me, he is quite amazed he did.

“I needed to be sure you were real.” What does that even mean in the first place? What is a man of high calibre like Dominic Steele doing with a thought like that for seven years?I forced myself to bury the thoughts in the grave of my mind.

And exactly at 6am in the morning, I give up on sleep totally. I sit up, run my hands through my hair and breathe in and out. The burial is today. The plan is simple: I get through today, I get into the car and go home to my beloved Ethan.

Then.

I grab my wash bag and move before I can think too hard about it.

The east wing family bathroom is still at the exact spot I left it in my memory. It is seated at the end of the corridor, past the linen cupboard and the narrow window that overlooks the garden. I remember I used to come here as a teen because it had the best water pressure in the whole house and because nobody noticed or ever used it. The Steeles had their own en suites, and the east wing bathroom was always my possession by default, a corner of the house I had owned to myself.

Childhood old habits.

Well, I do not think much of it, I just go on.

The door opens like it is expecting me. The room is cool, still, and smells faintly of old stone and a floral soap someone left on the ledge. I turn the shower on and wait for it to warm up, leaning on the sink and watching my own face in the mirror. I look tired. And I am about to feel a bit relieved in this bath..

And like a flash, the dream replays in my head repeatedly, the one I had two nights ago in my studio, making my whole body heavy. I think briefly of the dream, then I think of the steam, the shower curtain, and the way everything here feels unavoidable.

I dismissed it. It was a dream. Dreams can be foolish, or dangerous.

I step in.

The water is hot and the pressure remains exactly as I remember it. I feel my shoulders come down gradually. I raise my face to the water and allow it to soak me while I am breathing in and out. The steam thickens around me. The rest of the house and everything within it feels distant from where I am.I have been here for five minutes when I hear it.Or should I say I do not hear? That is the problem. I am not even sure. But I know I do not hear the door. I do not hear footsteps. I do not hear anything at all until the curtain shifts.I spin around with the rapidity of a fan, nearly slipping.And I nearly scream at what I see…Dominic stands at the edge of the shower, one hand still holding the curtain back.

Did he miss his way here? Or has he been stalking me around, because how do I explain this, that an adult man follows me into the bathroom? To see what exactly? Is it my breasts he has not seen before, because I do not understand. He is staring at me, and I am staring back at him. Neither of us speaks for a long while.And that's when it happens….The steam circulates between us. He looks the same way he did seven years ago in this bathroom and nothing like it at the same time. Yes, he is broader and harder now, alongside the sharper line of his jaw. His chest rises and falls like a steady rush, and his grey eyes that Ethan inherited, which I have spent a good seven years avoiding, are fixed on mine with such depth that my skin itches and feels two sizes too small.. “Get the hell out of here right now,” I almost scream. My voice comes out sharper than the dissatisfaction building within me.But his reaction wastes the effort I put into the shout.He does not move an inch. “I did not know you were in here actually.”

“Whatever. Just get your ass out, Dominic.” I look at him. “Please just go. Do not let me do something both of us will regret. You have seen my nakedness again, have you not? I think that should make the rest of your day. Now please move out.”

“Sophie.”

“Do not Sophie me. I said, get out.”He still does not move, and I detest him for it. I have been screaming here since, and none of it matters to him. He just remains here without flinching, like I am only a noise maker. He says my name like it costs him a lot to pronounce, which I really do hate. I detest that his eyes have not stopped looking at me, though I notice it is only my face he has been focused on, like it is the only part he is interested in, because that makes it harder for me to stay mad at him, or whatever.

My wolf crawls within me, hitting my whole body like a punch against a wall.The sensation hits violently, suddenly. I flinch, I will not lie. It presses through me with a heat I have not felt in years, pushing and pressing like it wants to dissolve the boundary between my skin and his. It feels senseless, because how can my wolf sense him with such intimacy, like the seven years, the silence, and every careful wall I built mean absolutely nothing to it.

The mate bond. I had managed to curb it and silence it. I had also managed to reduce it to a distant ache I could schedule around. It had become a feeling I felt occasionally at three in the morning, then buried under work, routine, and the everyday act of raising Ethan. I was so good at burying it, and I had become an expert.But I am not burying anything at this moment. Dominic’s eyes shift slightly, a spark moving behind them, and I know his wolf is already active, doing what mine is doing within me.

The recognition, the pull, the quiet roaring at him the same way mine is roaring at me. “Do not,” I mutter, meaning it as a caution, but it comes out like a plea.He takes one more step forward. The water bounces off his chest and he does not even blink. He keeps moving slowly in my direction. The steam closes around both of us.

My back finds the tiles and I press against them uselessly because there is nowhere to run from this man in front of me, coming close like I am his prey. But then, an embarrassingly sincere part of me is not even sure I want to go anywhere at this point. The fuck.“You know we shouldn't, right?” I whisper. “I know,” he responds. “This is a very terrible idea.” “I know that too.” “Dominic.” He stops right in front of me, close enough that the warmth coming off him is inseparable from the heat of the water. He raises one hand and I go completely still as his fingers brush my jaw, just the tips of them. It feels like he is checking again that I am real, like he is answering a question that has been bothering him through this examination.My wolf goes mute.And I know it is not because it is satisfied. It is just because it has already won and it knows it.. I close my eyes, and I feel him lean in immediately. And then his mouth finds mine and seven years of conscious distance collapse in a blink and I stop arguing.And…What comes next is not like the dream.

The dream was a memory inspired by longing, softened at the edges. But this is nothing like that.This is fast and immediate, intentional in a way that embarrasses me and undoes me all at once. His hands are in my hair and on my waist, and mine are pressed flat on his chest like I am trying to push him away and pull him closer at the same time. I do not even know what I am thinking right now.There are no words, no gentleness. Just the two of us, the steam and the water, and the mate bond burning through every nerve ending I have, like it has been waiting for seven years to finally do exactly this.And suddenly.His palms slide up my sides, and he knows exactly where they are, not missing a single inch, cupping my breasts. He lifts them as he sucks my nipples hard, drawing a gasp I cannot hold anymore from my throat, and he swallows it with an intense kiss.I cannot understand why this is so consuming, but I cannot deny that I am not enjoying it.I arch into him, my legs parting automatically as he presses his cock against my thigh, and I feel the thickness of him. He lifts me slightly, pinning me to the tile, the head of his cock nudging at my entrance, slick and ready, almost slipping in as I whimper against his mouth. “It is everything I have spent seven good years trying to forget.” Then a sharp sound emerges from the sink, a bird, I think, perched on the bathroom sink, its wings flapping wildly. We freeze, our hearts pounding like they are about to burst, thinking footsteps are approaching, someone is coming.

Meanwhile, it is just a bird.And afterwards, the water runs cold.I come back to myself in pieces. The cold is even helpful in the way it cuts through the heat and the haze, landing me firmly back in reality, which is that I am standing in the east wing bathroom of the Steele family villa on the morning of my stepfather’s funeral, having just made the worst decision of my adult life.. And for a good three seconds, I first press my head against the tile. Then I straighten up.. On the other hand…

Dominic is leaning against the opposite wall, watching me. His chest still rises and falls like a tide. His grey eyes track every movement I make like I am his concern. I do not risk looking at him longer than a second because I cannot afford to.I walk past him and grab my towel off the rail. I reach for my clothes. Then. His hand closes around my wrist softly. I stop.

The bathroom is completely quiet except for the last drops of water falling slowly from the showerhead. I stare at his hand around my wrist while I wait for him to speak. His voice comes out low, like a mutter, but not soft at the same time. A heavy mutter.

“Where is he, Sophie?”

I don't breathe…“Where is my son?”

“Where is my son?”

And who else on earth expresses four words and seizes your breathing progression completely? Dominic Steele, that’s who is standing there in a cloud of thinning steam with a towel at his waist, plus seven years of unanswered questions sitting behind his eyes like a river of blood waiting for him to thirst for water.

I don’t move because I can’t. My clothes are still pressed against my breasts, my hair is dripping cold water down my back, and my legs have simply decided they are not doing anything dramatic right now. They are just standing here, surviving.

I turn slowly.

And his face is what breaks me open.

I sense a different dimension of Dominic’s look. The look is far different from the anger I spent the entire flight here preparing for, nor the sharp, entitled fury of a man who feels cheated which honestly I could handle. I had whole speeches ready for anger. Bullet points and everything. But anger is not what is sitting on Dominic Steele’s face right now, and that is the problem.

What is there is certainty.

I want to believe he has done the maths. I can see a series of mathematical equations and calculations running through his face. The grey eyes that Ethan woke up with every single morning of his six years on this earth. The age. The morning I vanished without so much as a note on the kitchen counter. All of these clicking into place right in front of me, and there is nothing I can do to unclick it.

My wolf drops to the floor of my chest like a cloud itself falling on the patch of earth.

“Dominic.” My voice comes out smaller than I want it to.

“Don’t.” His jaw pulls tight. “Don’t say my name like you’re about to talk me down from something. I’m not in a situation to be managed, Sophie.”

I close my mouth.

He releases my wrist, and I hadn’t even noticed he was still holding it until the warmth of his hand disappears. He takes one step back, then folds his arms across his chest. And just waits—like a man with nowhere else to be in the world except right here, right now, getting this answer.

The denial is there. Of course it is. It comes fast and instinctive and ready, sitting right on the front of my tongue neat as you please, and for one full second I actually consider it. I consider looking him dead in his grey eyes and saying no. No, I don’t know what you’re talking about. No, you’ve lost your mind. No, no, no.

But then I look at him properly.

And I see the grief settling in his face—old and worn smooth, like he has been carrying it too long that it now stops feeling like a weight and starts feeling like just a normal part of him. He doesn’t even look angry. He looks like he has addressed a name to a problem that has been hurting him for years without explanation, and the name fits, and that is somehow worse than the hurt ever was.

I have worn that exact face too. A long time ago. In the car when a song comes on that I don’t even consciously connect to him but my chest does. Every single time Ethan tilts his head a certain way and the resemblance lands on me like a stone dropped from a height.

I can’t lie to that face. I genuinely cannot.

“It’s complicated,” I say instead, which is not a lie. It is just a very small piece of truth wearing a trench coat.

A spark shifts in his expression. “I have time.”

“You don’t know what it was like.”

“So tell me.”

“Dom.”

“Tell me, Sophie. I’m right here.”

The steam is completely gone now. The bathroom feels like it has shrunk two sizes. I press my back against the sink and hold the edge of it behind me with both hands because I need something that isn’t going to move while everything else apparently is.

“The morning after that night,” I start. I stop. I look at the floor. Then I try again because I have been carrying this for seven years and my arms are tired. “I came to find you. The next morning. I came because I didn’t know what we were or what any of it meant, and my wolf was saying things I didn’t have words for yet, and I just thought—” My throat pulls tight. “I thought maybe you felt it too.”

He is completely still.

“I found you in your father’s study. You were on the phone. And you said” I breathe. “You said you would never let yourself be tied down by a mate. That you had no interest in being bound to some quiet little nobody your father had dragged into the house.”

The silence is overwhelming.

No sound comes from the drip of the shower. No sound from the hallway. No sound at all. Just that expression sitting between us like a lifeless body on the floor.

Dominic doesn’t move.

And I watch a weight walking across his eyes, like it is going to break him into pieces with the speed of light.

“That conversation,” he says quietly, “was not what you think.”

I laugh, and the laughter is not as a result of finding him funny. The laugh scrapes out of me, humourless. “I was standing in the doorway. I heard you, Dominic.”

“You heard the middle of it.”

“I heard enough.”

“Sophie.” He takes a step forward and I hold my ground even though every single part of me is having a loud disagreement about whether that is the right move. “That call was with my uncle. He had been on my back for months, pressuring me to reject the bond. He had a strategic and approved match picked out for me. The right family, the right bloodline, everything he thought I needed.” His voice is calm, but a weight beneath it is pulling at the seams. “What you heard was me telling him what he needed to hear so he would get off my back.”

I stare at him.

“I didn’t mean any of it.”

“You’re lying.”

“I am not lying to you.”

“You want me to believe that after seven years this is how it comes out? In a bathroom? Like, what the fuck? You just casually drop that it was all a misunderstanding?”

“There is nothing casual about any of this.” His voice drops low. His eyes don’t move from mine, not even a flicker. “I have not been casual about this for a single day in seven years.”

My hands start shaking. I look down at them because I don’t know what to do with that statement and I can’t look at his face while I’m holding it.

The mate bond rolls through the space between us like a Cyclone that is low and enormous, indifferent to how inconvenient it is. A wound split open fresh. I feel it in my back teeth.

“I want to know my son, Sophie.” His voice is quiet now. The quietest it has been. “I’m not standing here asking for your permission. I’m only telling you this is what’s going to happen. I want to know him.”

“That is not a matter you get to decide alone,” I say. My voice holds, barely. “And I am not making any decisions standing dripping wet in a bathroom the morning we are burying your father. I need time…”

He looks at me with his long, unblinking look.

Then he nods once.

“You have until after the burial.”

He picks his towel up from the floor, walks out, and pulls the door shut behind him with a soft, clean click.

I stand in the silence he leaves behind and listen to the last drops falling from the showerhead, and my own breathing, and nothing else.

My wolf lifts its head and says one thing clearly, without giving room for argument.

He’s telling the truth.

I didn’t even respond to it. I got dressed with hands that won’t fully cooperate, walk back down the corridor, slip into my room, and close the door. I sit on the edge of the bed, press my palms flat on my knees, and ask myself to think.

My phone lights up on the nightstand.

Unknown number.

I reach for it because I think it is Miriam. I think it is Ethan asking for waffles through my assistant because he has learned to negotiate through third parties.

I read it once.

Then I read it again.

I know about the boy. Leave quietly or everyone finds out what you two are to each other. And mind you, you have just 24 hours.

I am shivering right now, all my body sucked with the freeze of fear. The phone stays in my hand while the room stays exactly as it was. The white roses on the dresser don’t move. And outside the window, I can see the Steele estate waking up slowly, totally unbothered.

And I sit there in the middle of all that stillness with ice water where my blood used to be.

Someone in this house knows about my son.

And who the hell could that be?