Chapter 4 📖: Smoke and Ice

I should've left. Apologized. Pretended I got lost.

But something about the way he looked at me froze the words in my throat.

He didn't move. Didn't ask again. Just stood in the doorway, eyes shadowed beneath a quiet ache I couldn't name.

"I heard music," I finally said.

His jaw clenched. "Then you were dreaming."

"I wasn't."

His silence stretched. Thick. Tired.

Behind him, I saw the grand piano-half-covered, keys dusty but open like someone had tried and failed to play.

"I didn't mean to intrude," I whispered, already turning to leave.

"You didn't."

The words came softer than I expected. Raw. Stripped.

I paused. And that was my mistake.

"I never hired you," he added, voice cooler now. "Mrs. Keller handled it. If it were up to me..."

His eyes swept over me. Not cruelly. Not lustfully. Just... observant.

"I wouldn't have brought someone like you here."

"Someone like me?"

He stepped forward, bare feet soundless against the marble.

"Soft. Curious. Loud with your silences."

It wasn't meant to be a compliment. But it wasn't quite an insult either.

I swallowed hard. "I can quit."

"No," he said quickly. Too quickly. "Theo's... calmer. Since you arrived. He sleeps."

A pause.

"And so do I."

He looked away like the admission embarrassed him.

Then he walked past me, disappearing into the dark like a man retreating back into his own shadow.

And for some reason, my heart ached for the silence he lived with.