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“Most nights.”
“Can I watch?”
His eyes flick to mine. “She won’t come close with the lights on.”
“I don’t need close.”
He studies me for a second, then walks to the wall and switches off the kitchen lights.
Darkness drops over the room. The counters turn black. The copper pans dull to shadow, and Fionn becomes a shape where he stands.
I tell myself I’m being ridiculous, slipping off the stool and moving to the door to wait for Megan the fox while Fionn watches the same patch of night.
Then something moves near the edge of the garden.
A small red shape slips out from under the hedge and pauses at the dish with one paw lifted, ears pricked, body held like she might vanish again.
“She’s beautiful,” I say quietly.
He rakes a hand through his hair. “She’s a thief with an attitude problem.”
“That’s your fox, all right.”
Together we stand at the glass in the dark, and his hand comes to rest against mine on the counter’s edge. Our fingertips lightly skim and then I inch mine a little closer.
I don’t move away, and neither does he.
Megan drags a piece of meat into the hedge, and for one minute of my life, touching him doesn’t feel like a war crime.
After a few minutes, his phone vibrates on the island.
One second, he’s watching a fox eat food from a dish. The next, his face empties, and Fionn Vaughn Harrington returns like a dark shadow.
He picks up the phone and checks the screen. Whatever name he sees kills the last trace of peacefulness in him.
“What?” he answers.
I glance toward the window, but Megan is gone. Only the dish remains near the hedge, half-dragged into shadow.
“Bring your food,” he says, covering the phone with his hand.
“Where?”
“Bring it.”
The quiet order annoys me more because it’s so expecting and dismissive.
“I’m not a child.”
“No,” he says, gaze holding mine. “You’re a woman who’s had booze, sex, and only two bites of chicken. Bring the food.”
Then he uncovers the phone and walks out of the kitchen.
For a second, I consider leaving it on the island out of principle. However, my stomach chooses betrayal. I pick it up and follow him.
“Not in the Harrington name,” he says a few steps ahead.
His voice is different now, the lazy edge from the kitchen is gone, replaced by something flat and dangerous.
