Run: 2026-03-18-01KM0891FSEAY8474VZEB0EH2J

Rory cracked the third deadbolt and pulled the door in. Lucien Moreau filled the narrow landing like he had been built for it, all tailored charcoal and pale rain, his slicked-back blond hair catching the yellow light from the hall bulb. One amber eye, one black. Both fixed on her face and stayed there a beat too long. His ivory-handled cane rested against his palm. Water darkened the shoulder of his jacket. The smell of wet pavement and cold air came in with him. Rory kept one hand on the door edge and the other on the chain. “For a man who liked drama, you picked a grim hour to turn up.” Lucien’s mouth tilted, not quite a smile. “You still locked three deadbolts for a one-bedroom flat above a curry house. Some things never changed.” “Some things stayed sensible.” His gaze dropped to her left wrist where the sleeve of her jumper had ridden up, revealing the small crescent scar. It lasted only a moment, but she caught it. He always noticed the details first. “Are you going to stand there and stare, or are you planning to say why you’ve ruined my evening?” “I needed to see you.” “That was supposed to sound better?” He looked past her shoulder into Eva’s place, with its stacks of books, rolled scrolls, and paper-thick piles of notes crowding every surface. Ptolemy, the tabby cat, wound around Rory’s ankles and stopped dead when he spotted Lucien. His ears flattened. The tail flicked once, hard. Lucien glanced down at the cat. “Your guard has grown a low opinion of my footwear.” “He has better judgement than most men I know.” Ptolemy gave Lucien a long, wounded stare, then slipped through the gap and vanished into the cluttered living room. Lucien lifted one brow. “I think he dislikes me.” “He’s got taste.” She tugged the door a little wider, enough to let the hallway light spill over the threshold without giving him the satisfaction of a full welcome. “You came here unannounced. That counts as poor taste, too.” He leaned on the cane and peered at her through the half-open door, posture perfect despite the rain still clinging to him. “I came because your phone went to voicemail.” “My phone was off.” “That explains the voicemail.” Rory gave him a flat look. “You always did enjoy hearing yourself speak.” “And you always did enjoy pretending you didn’t notice when I got under your skin.” The words landed between them with a soft, ugly grace. Rory tightened her grip on the chain. The flat felt too small suddenly, too warm, as if his voice had pulled the air closer. “You don’t get to come here and act familiar.” Lucien’s jaw shifted once. “I didn’t come to act.” “Then what did you come for?” He held her gaze. The amber eye caught the hall light. The black one turned it into a bruise. “A conversation.” She barked a laugh that held no humour. “You vanished for months and now you want a conversation at my door?” “I did not vanish.” “You disappeared.” “I left.” Rory stared at him. Then she let the chain slacken and opened the door wider, not because she wanted him inside, but because the landing smelled like damp plaster and his expression had sharpened into something she remembered too well. She stepped back and folded her arms. “Fine. Come in. Try not to bleed on Eva’s carpet.” Lucien crossed the threshold with the kind of care that made every movement look deliberate. He shut the door behind him. The flat swallowed him immediately. Books stacked on the windowsill. A half-burnt candle on the coffee table. Three different notebooks open face-down in a fan across the arm of the sofa. A teacup with dried tea leaves stuck to the bottom. The whole place looked like a storm had sat down to think. Ptolemy emerged from behind a pile of receipts and sat on the rug, tail wrapped around his paws. He watched Lucien with the same expression Rory usually saw on customs officers and disappointed lecturers. Lucien set his cane against the sideboard, slow enough that Rory saw the blade-hidden confidence in every careful motion. He took off one glove, then the other, and folded them together in one hand. “This place suits you.” “It’s Eva’s.” “I know.” Rory laughed under her breath. “Of course you do. You know everything. That was your favourite part of yourself.” His eyes lifted, sharp and unreadable. “My favourite part of myself was not sitting outside your door for six minutes while you decided whether to let me in.” She stepped into the kitchen area, more for the distance than the tea kettle. “You timed it?” “I counted.” “That’s worse.” “It’s efficient.” “It’s stalking with manners.” That earned her a faint curl at the corner of his mouth, and for one second she wanted to cross the room and shove it off his face with her hand or her mouth. She hated that his presence still did that to her. Hated more that he knew it. Ptolemy rose, approached Lucien with the stiff dignity of a judge, and sniffed at the toe of his polished shoe. Lucien looked down at him with complete seriousness. “If you sharpen those claws on my trouser cuffs, I’ll have to take the matter personally.” The cat blinked once and swiped at the cane instead. Lucien caught the handle before it moved. Rory watched the exchange, despite herself. “You’re lucky he didn’t take your hand off.” “I’ve had more dangerous encounters than a territorial tabby.” “Somehow, that sounds like a lie.” His gaze slipped back to her face. “It wasn’t.” The flat went quiet. Not empty. Just tense enough that every small sound carried: rain tapping the window, the fridge motor kicking in, the scratch of Ptolemy’s claws on the rug. Rory reached for the kettle, then stopped. “Tea?” “I’d settle for honesty.” She faced him fully then. Bright blue eyes, sharp enough to cut if she let them. His clothes still looked too expensive for Eva’s place, too controlled for the mess around them. He looked like he had stepped out of another world and brought the weather with him. “Try again.” Lucien let out a slow breath through his nose. “I have information.” “That’s not better.” “It’s important.” “Everything is important when you want something.” His mouth tightened. “You used to know when I was serious.” “You used to show up before I got angry.” One of his brows lifted. “And now?” “Now you’ve got the timing of a drunk apology.” That did it. A flicker moved through his face, something raw enough to crack the polish. He crossed one step closer before he seemed to decide against another. “I came because someone asked about you.” Rory went still. “Who?” “I don’t like repeating names I only heard once.” “Lucien.” His eyes held hers. He didn’t blink. “Two men asked after a delivery rider from Cardiff with blue eyes and a scar on her left wrist. They didn’t ask in a friendly way.” The kitchen light hummed overhead. Rory kept her face flat, but her fingers slid against her sleeve. “You followed that all the way here?” “I followed it to three people who lied to me badly. Then I followed it here.” “And you thought what? I’d be grateful?” “I thought you’d want to know.” “You thought wrong.” He looked at her for a moment, then lowered his gaze to her wrist again, and when he spoke, his voice lost some of its edge. “That scar was on every description.” Rory’s chin lifted. “It’s a scar, Lucien. Not a bloody target.” “No. But they noted it.” She curled her hand into a fist at her side. The crescent mark pulled pale against her skin. Old childhood accident. Stupid, small, permanent. She hated that strangers could turn it into a marker, a hook. “And you came here alone?” “Yes.” “Armed?” His eyes flicked to the cane. “Always.” She snorted once. “That’s a yes.” He stepped another inch into her space. The flat didn’t have enough room for the move to feel casual. Rory could smell the rain on him, the clean soap under it, the familiar trace of spice that never quite left his clothes. It pulled at memory like a hand at the back of her neck. “You shouldn’t be here,” she murmured. “I know.” “That didn’t stop you before.” Something dark crossed his face. “You told me to go.” “I told you not to make me choose.” “And I chose for you.” The words cut clean. Rory’s mouth opened, then shut again. She remembered the last time, the ugly edge of the argument, the way his silence had stretched until it felt like another person in the room. She remembered the heat of his hand at her waist before he stepped away. She remembered not sleeping for three nights because he had left with no note, no call, no explanation she could use to make sense of it. “You left me with nothing.” Lucien’s gaze shifted over her face as if he were reading a version of the night she still kept under lock. “I left because I knew what came after me.” “That’s a neat little line.” “It was true.” “True doesn’t help much when you’re the one left standing in the dark.” He took off one glove and turned it in his hand, thumb rubbing once over the leather. The gesture looked controlled. It wasn’t. “You think I don’t know that?” “You vanished.” “I protected you.” Rory gave a short, sharp laugh. “By doing the one thing I asked you not to do?” His eyes narrowed. “You asked me not to stay.” “I asked you not to make promises you couldn’t keep.” “You were angry.” “I was honest.” “And I was reckless.” The silence after that felt different. Not lighter. Just bare. Ptolemy hopped onto the sofa and began kneading one of Eva’s research pillows like it had personally offended him. Rory stood still, hands braced against the edge of the counter, and watched Lucien watch her. He looked thinner than she remembered. Not by much. Enough to notice if you had spent too much time memorising the shape of him. His collar sat slightly skewed, his tie loosened at the throat. The rain had darkened the line of his hair near one temple. Nothing about him looked careless. That was the worst part. Even soaked and tired and standing in her friend’s cluttered flat, he still carried himself like he knew exactly how much room he could take before the room started belonging to him. Rory hated that her pulse had started paying attention again. “You should have called,” she said. “You wouldn’t have answered.” “You don’t know that.” Lucien’s mouth twitched, this time with something that looked dangerously close to affection. “I know you, Rory.” She hated the way he used her name. Not Aurora. Rory. Like he had peeled it off the edge of her mouth himself. “Don’t.” He stopped. The word landed between them and held. “Don’t what?” “Don’t look at me like that.” His gaze dropped, slow, deliberate, to her mouth. Just once. Enough to set heat under her skin. “Like what?” “Like you’ve got any right.” His throat moved. He took one step closer and stopped with the counter between them, his hand flat on the wood beside one of Eva’s stacks of notes. The paper rustled under his palm. “I came because I didn’t trust anyone else with this.” Rory’s eyes flicked to his hand, then back up to his face. “And because you knew I’d still open the door?” Lucien’s silence answered for him. The corner of her mouth tightened. “Bloody hell.” His expression shifted, a crack of something human cutting through all that control. “I missed that look.” Rory pushed off the counter and came around it until only a narrow strip of floor separated them. Ptolemy’s ears flicked, and he watched the pair of them with the wary interest of a creature that knew when a room had changed shape. “You missed me,” she said. Lucien held her stare. The amber eye shone brighter under the kitchen light. “Yes.” The word landed low and steady, with none of the polish he usually wore. Rory’s breath caught despite herself. He saw it. Of course he did. His hand moved, not to touch her face, not yet, but toward the wrist where the scar peeked from her sleeve. “Can I?” Rory looked at his hand, then at his face, at the question he hadn’t dressed up and the restraint sitting around it like a knife in a sheath. Outside, the rain pressed harder against the window. Inside, the flat seemed to shrink again. She didn’t pull away. Lucien’s fingers hovered just above the pale crescent on her skin as the tabby cat let out a warning hiss from the sofa and Rory’s voice came out rougher than she meant it to. “You turn up after months and ask nicely for my wrist?” His gaze stayed on her mouth. “I was aiming higher.”