Chapter 2

And Montrose House was waiting for her.

The problem wasn't meeting Alistair Montrose. The problem was that, somehow, he seemed to have found her first.

Montrose House didn't look like a building. It looked like a warning.

It stood on an elegant street in New Town, its facade a gray stone, its windows tall, and its black door so polished that Arabella could see her reflection trembling in it. Two iron lions guarded the entrance. Neither seemed inclined to let a student with worn shoes and an overstuffed folder pass.

Arabella swallowed.

“It's just a meeting,“ he told himself. ”You go in, you talk, you leave. Nobody dies.”

The doorman opened the door before she could touch it.

“Miss Sinclair.”

It wasn't a question.

“Yes.”

“Mr. Montrose is waiting for you.”

That didn't help.

The lobby smelled of waxed wood, leather, and something subtly expensive. Everything there seemed placed to remind anyone who didn't belong in that world. The paintings on the wall depicted stern-eyed men and women, generations of Montroses who seemed capable of disapproving even from beyond the grave.

An assistant in a navy blue suit led her to a private elevator.

“Mr. Montrose asked me to go straight up.”

“Did he ask?”

“Yes.”

Arabella gripped the folder.

The elevator ascended silently. Too fast. Too elegant. When the doors opened, she was greeted by an immense office overlooking a gray and majestic Edinburgh. Beyond the glass, the city's domes and rooftops faded into the rain.

And then he saw it.

Alistair Montrose stood with his back to the window. He wore a dark suit that seemed tailored with the same precision as his posture. He wasn't just attractive. He was quietly dangerous, like a knife wrapped in velvet.

“Miss Sinclair,” he said without turning around.

Her voice was deep. Controlled. Too confident.

Arabella felt all the phrases she had rehearsed for two days leaving her body.

“Mr. Montrose.”

He turned.

The light eyes in the photographs didn't do her justice. In person, they were colder, more attentive, harder to hold. Arabella had the absurd feeling that he saw not only her face, but also her weariness, her concealed poverty, and every insecurity she had tried to hide.

Alistair walked towards her.

“Thank you for coming.”

“Thank you for receiving me.”

He extended his hand. Arabella hesitated for a second before accepting it.

The contact was brief, but enough to upset his pulse.

“Arabella Sinclair—he read, as if testing the name—. Literature. Thesis on children's reading and early reader development.”

“Yes.”

“An ambitious topic.”

She lifted her chin.

“Not useless.”

Something changed in his expression. Almost a smile. Almost.

“I didn't say that.”

“He thought about it.”

Silence.

Arabella wanted to swallow her own words.

But Alistair wasn't offended. On the contrary. He seemed more interested.

“Please sit down, Miss Sinclair.”

She obeyed and opened the folder with cold hands.

For the first few minutes she spoke quickly. Too quickly. She explained the objectives, methodology, results, hypotheses, and authors. Alistair didn't interrupt her. He just watched, leaning against the edge of the desk, with a concentration that made her feel like she was on the edge of a precipice.

“Breathe,” he said suddenly.

Arabella stopped.

“I'm breathing.”

“Not enough.”

Her cheeks flushed.

“My thesis does not require medical assistance.”

This time he did smile. A tiny, dangerous curve.

“Your argument is strong. You're trying to hide it behind too many apologies.”

Arabella looked down.

“I'm not apologizing.”

“He does it with his voice.”

The phrase affected him more deeply than it should have.

Alistair took a few pages and quickly scanned them.

“Here. This part. It should open with this.”

“That's the end.”

“That's why it works. Readers don't wait until the end to decide if they care.”

Arabella blinked.

It was a useful critique. Accurate. Annoying.

“Does he/she always talk like that?”

“As well as?”

“As if he were giving orders even when he's right.”

He barely bent down.

“Only when someone interests me.”

The air changed.

Arabella felt that the office was too small.

“My thesis,” he said, trying to regain ground.

“Of course.”

But Alistair's gaze was no longer strictly academic.

When the meeting ended, he closed the folder and gave it back to her.

“You have talent, Miss Sinclair. Don't waste it by pretending you don't know it.”

Arabella got up, unsteady.

“Thank you.”

“We'll meet again.”

It didn't sound like a possibility.

It sounded like a decision.

Arabella left Montrose House with the rain hitting her face and her heart completely out of rhythm.

He had gone there to defend a thesis. But Alistair Montrose had found something more than his words.

Seraphina was waiting for her on the floor with a cup of tea, two buns, and a police interrogation look on her face.

“Speaks.”

Arabella put the folder on the table and took off her soaked coat.

“It went well.”

“That's not talking. That's hiding evidence.”

“He corrected my thesis.”

“AND?”

Arabella bit her lip.

“And it's unbearable.”

Seraphina opened her eyes with absolute pleasure.

“You like me.”

“I didn't say that.”

“You said insufferable. In your language it means handsome, rich, and emotionally dangerous.”

“In my language it means unbearable.”

But she couldn't help but remember the way Alistair had pronounced her name. Nor the calm with which he'd identified her academic weaknesses. Nor that absurd phrase: Only when someone interests me.

He worked that night at The Thistle Room with his mind elsewhere. Bad sign. Magnus noticed it in less than ten minutes.

“Table seven. Two coffees, one tea, three cakes. And a smile.”

“The smile wasn't in the contract.”

“Neither is sarcasm.”

Arabella carried the tray and carefully made her way through the shop. She was exhausted, but the shift was necessary. If she managed to get paid that week, she could pay the rent and maybe buy some food that wasn't canned.

Then the door opened.

The murmur of the coffee shop changed.

Arabella didn't need to look to know that someone important had just entered. She knew it from the way Magnus straightened up, from how some of the customers stopped talking, from that brief silence that precedes powerful surnames.

He looked.

Alistair Montrose was at the entrance.

Black coat. Hair barely damp from the rain. Two men behind him. No effort to attract attention, and yet the whole place revolved around him.

Arabella made a misstep.

The tray tilted.

He saw the disaster before he could prevent it.

Coffee, tea, and cream fell onto Alistair's immaculate dark coat.

For a second, nobody breathed.

Magnus paled.

Arabella wished the earth would open up beneath her feet and accept her without question.

“I'm sorry,“ she said, horrified. ”I'm so, so sorry. I...”

Alistair looked down at the stain, then at her.

He didn't scream. He didn't get angry. That was worse.

“Miss Sinclair.”

“I swear it wasn't intentional.”

“I don't usually assume that I'm being attacked with coffee before noon.”

Someone let out a nervous laugh.

Arabella pressed her lips together.

Magnus appeared beside her like a furious ghost.

“Mr. Montrose, I apologize on behalf of the establishment. This employee will no longer be working here.”

Arabella turned towards him.

“That?”

“You heard right.”

The humiliation burned him more than the fear.

“It was an accident.”

“An expensive accident.”

But the truth was already closing in.