The single word hung between them, a fragile, trembling thing. How?
Zane didn't move, didn't smile. He simply absorbed it, his dark eyes holding hers with an intensity that made the air feel thin. He leaned forward slowly, bracing his hands on the edge of her desk. The polished wood groaned softly under his weight. He was a storm cloud drifting across the sun, blocking out the sterile office light, and all she could see was him.
Just a chance, he'd said. A fraction of your trust.
His movement was a study in control; every muscle coiled with purpose yet reined in by a will she could almost feel. He didn't lurch or grab. He simply... leaned. The space between their faces dissolved inch by agonizing inch. Brianna's breath stalled in her lungs, her psychologist's mind a useless, frantic buzz in the back of her skull. All her training, all her carefully constructed walls of composure, crumbled to dust.
She could count the tiny flecks of gold in his irises. She could feel the faint, warm gust of his breath against her lips, smelling faintly of mint and a deeper, familiar spice that was uniquely him. Her eyes fluttered shut, a silent, involuntary surrender.
And then it happened.
His lips brushed hers.
It wasn't a kiss of possession, not the demanding, hungry kiss her body had braced for. It was a whisper. A question. A soft, tentative press of skin against skin so gentle it was almost not there.
A ghost of a touch from a ghost from her past.
Yet it ignited everything.
A spark, sharp and bright, shot straight down her spine, pooling low in her belly. Her fingers, which had been gripping the cold edge of her own chair, went slack. A small, broken sound, barely more than a sigh, escaped her throat.
He pulled back a fraction, just enough to break the contact. Her eyes flew open. He was watching her, his gaze searching her face, reading every flicker of fear and longing that she knew was written there.
"My pretty girl," he whispered, his voice a raw scrape of sound.
The old endearment, the one that had once been a balm, now felt like a brand. It shattered the fragile moment. The spark of longing was doused by a cold wave of memory. The screaming matches in her childhood home. The feeling of being nothing. The five years of silence that had confirmed it.
She jerked back, her chair rolling a few inches with the force of it. "Don't." The word was sharp, a sliver of glass. "Don't you do that, Zane. Don't say that like nothing happened. Like you didn't..."Her voice cracked. She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly freezing despite the warmth of the room.
He straightened up, his own hands curling into loose fists at his sides. The pain on his face was immediate and unmistakable. "I know," he said, his voice thick. "I know I don't have the right to call you that. Not anymore. It just... came out. You looked... God, Brianna, you look exactly how I remember you in my best dreams."
"This isn't a dream," she said, her voice regaining a sliver of its professional steel. "This is my office. This is my life. And you can't just walk back into it and... and kiss me and call me pretty and expect the last five years to vanish."
"I don't expect that," he insisted, taking a single step closer, then stopping himself, forcing his body to still. A soldier at attention. "I expect nothing. I hope. There's a difference. That kiss... that was me hoping. It was me showing you I can be soft. I can be careful. That I'm not the same brick wall of a man who shut down and shut you out."
Her heart was a frantic bird beating against her ribs. She could still feel the imprint of his lips on hers, a phantom pressure that tingled. It had been so careful. So achingly soft. It was a kiss designed to remind, not to claim. And it had worked. Her body was humming with the memory of it, a traitorous, eager hum that her mind was desperately trying to quiet.
She thought of his confession, the darkness he said he'd been protecting her from. She saw it now, not as an excuse, but as a reality in the new lines around his eyes, the weary set of his broad shoulders.
"You think one soft kiss fixes it?" Her question was a challenge, but it lacked its earlier heat.
"No," he said simply. "I think it's a start. I think it's me saying please without using words." He glanced around the office, at the degrees on the wall, the tidy bookshelves, the comfortable chair where her patients bared their souls. "I interrupted your work day."
It was such a mundane, practical observation that it almost made her laugh. The absurdity of it all. This towering, devastating man who had just turned her world upside down with a whisper of a kiss was now acknowledging office etiquette.
"Yes," she said, her tone flat. "You did."
"Can I..." He hesitated, choosing his words with obvious care. "Can I take you to dinner? Not as a date. As a... conversation. Somewhere public. Somewhere you feel safe. No more..." He gestured vaguely between them. "...surprise visits. No more ambushes. Just two people talking."
Her first instinct was to refuse. To rebuild the wall, brick by brick, and shut him out forever. It was the safe choice. The smart choice.
But the ghost of his kiss was still there on her mouth, a promise of a warmth she had forced herself to forget. And the man standing before her wasn't the one who had left. He was harder, yes, but also... softer in ways she couldn't quite define. He was trying. Really trying.
The silence stretched. She watched him stand there, accepting her scrutiny, letting her decide the fate of his hope.
"Dinner," she finally said, the word feeling foreign on her tongue.
