Grace didn't know what she was expecting when she said yes.
A quiet dinner? A hotel bar cloaked in dim lights and whispered tension?
What she got instead was a car waiting for her at the hour of dusk, with no driver in sight, only a note on the dashboard:
"Follow the music. ~ S"
The soft hum of a piano spilled through hidden speakers as the car carried her along winding roads, far from the city's suffocating pulse. The sunset bled gold onto her skin, and the lilies on the passenger seat mirrored the ones on her table the night before.
She wore a short floral dress, the hem flaring just above her knees with every step, soft and whimsical. White sneakers grounded her in ease and contrast, a deliberate rebellion against high heels. Her black hair was pulled up in a high ponytail, wisps framing her face, playful and understated, effortless beauty in motion.
By the time the car stopped, she found herself in front of a hidden estate surrounded by trees, wild, ancient, whispering things. And there he stood.
Silas Vale, in black slacks and a white shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, standing like sin in human form. A crooked smile on his lips, as if he knew she'd come. As if he'd summoned her here not just with lilies, but with fate itself.
"You brought me to the woods?" she asked, stepping out, her sneakers crunching softly on gravel.
"No," he said, voice low, laced with something dangerous. "I brought you somewhere we could exist without the world watching."
The estate wasn't a house. It was a memory carved into reality. Candlelight danced in glass lanterns. A table set for two beneath a twisted willow tree. Soft jazz playing in the background, distant but intimate.
Grace was caught off guard. Not by the grandeur, but by the intimacy of it all. It wasn't a show. It wasn't designed to impress.
It was designed to feel like home.
Over dinner, Silas asked no small talk. Only things like:
"What do you think people fear the most when they're alone?"
Or, "Do you think obsession is just love with a sharper edge?"
And Grace, wine in hand, found herself answering. Honestly. As if some part of her had been waiting to be asked those questions.
By dessert, she forgot Julian ever existed.
By moonlight, they were walking along the lake behind the estate, their fingers brushing occasionally, never locking. The tension was too sacred for that.
He looked at her like he'd dreamed her into existence. Like he had memorized every version of her before she ever arrived.
She didn't know that was close to the truth.
"Why me?" she finally asked.
Silas stopped. Turned to her. The moon framed him like a portrait.
"Because you make me feel like I was born to find you."
She didn't know how to respond to that.
So she didn't.
But she followed him when he reached for her hand.
They didn't dance. Not this time. They didn't kiss either. The moment was too haunting, too fragile. Instead, they stood beneath the willow, a breath apart, cloaked in something nameless.
And for the first time, a crack showed in Grace's perfect mask.
Her eyes, usually calculated and glossy, flickered with something raw, too vulnerable for someone who mastered façades.
A tremor in her breath. A pause too long between smiles. Her gaze lingered on Silas like she wanted to memorize him, but didn't want to admit why.
She masked it with a comment about the moonlight, brushed it off with a joke about the cold air.
But something within her had shifted.
And even if Silas didn't see it fully, not yet, the night air caught the scent of something unraveling.