I had gone in trying to unnerve him. Seduce him, maybe. Disarm him.
But he’d turned it back on me with surgical precision, and now I was the one left shaken.
Not because he touched me.
Because he didn’t.
And that was the sharpest cut of all.
17
GRACE
Three days passed without a word from Rafe.
I had free run of the estate, guards maintaining a respectful distance as I wandered through gardens, swam in the indoor pool, and spent hours in the library. Meals appeared at regular intervals, served by staff who treated me with polite deference. My every need was anticipated and met before I could express it.
Everything except the one thing I found myself increasingly unable to ignore: answers.
And, if I was being honest with myself—which I tried to be these days, having little else to occupy my thoughts—something else. Someone else. Him.
After our last dinner, with its charged atmosphere and frustrating conclusion, Rafe had simply... disappeared. Not physically—I caught glimpses of him occasionally, moving between meetings, speaking with staff, always at a distance. But he made no attempt to approach me, to continue our strange dance of power and submission, to build on whatever was growing between us.
It was maddening. And illuminating.
Because his absence affected me more than I wanted to admit. I found myself looking for him in rooms I entered, listening for his footsteps in hallways, feeling a strange disappointment when another day passed without direct contact.
Stockholm syndrome, my mind whispered. Trauma bonding. Psychological adaptation to captivity.
But those clinical terms felt increasingly hollow, inadequate to describe the complexity of what I was feeling. This wasn't just about survival or adaptation. This was about... connection. Understanding. A recognition of something in him that resonated with something in me.
And curiosity. Always curiosity.
By the third evening, I'd made a decision. If Rafe wouldn't come to me, I would go to him. Not out of desperation or loneliness, but with purpose. With a plan.
I knew where his private library was—the sanctuary he'd shown me, the room that was "the most honest part" of him. It seemed the logical place to find him in the evening hours, away from the business of the day.
I dressed with care—not in anything overtly seductive, but in a simple silk blouse and tailored pants that suggested sophistication rather than surrender. I left my hair loose around my shoulders, applied minimal makeup, and added a touch of the perfume I'd found in my bathroom—something subtle with notes of jasmine and sandalwood.
Armor of a different sort. Weapons of a different kind.
The corridors of the estate were quiet as I made my way to the east wing, where Rafe's private spaces were located. No one stopped me, though I passed several guards who nodded politely as I walked by. My expanded freedom was still a strange thing—a cage with the door left tantalizingly ajar, but nowhere safe to fly.
I paused outside the carved wooden door of his library, suddenly uncertain. What if he wasn't there? What if he was, but rejected my approach? What if this plan, like my attempt to provoke him at dinner, backfired spectacularly?
Before I could lose my nerve, I knocked—three sharp raps that seemed to echo in the quiet hallway.
Silence. Then, "Come in."
His voice, low and controlled as always, sent an involuntary shiver down my spine. I took a deep breath, steadying myself, and opened the door.
The library was much as I remembered it—warm, intimate, with shelves of books lining the walls and a fire burning in the stone hearth. Rafe sat in one of the leather chairs, a book open in his lap, a glass of amber liquid on the table beside him. He looked up as I entered, surprise flickering briefly across his features before his expression settled into its usual unreadable mask.
"Grace," he said, closing his book and setting it aside. "This is unexpected."
"Is it?" I asked, closing the door behind me. "You've been avoiding me."
He raised an eyebrow, neither confirming nor denying the accusation. "I've been giving you space. There's a difference."
