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Her laugh came low and unsteady. She pressed the heel of her hand to her mouth, then lowered it. Hiding from him felt worse than letting him see. “I don’t want to lose you,” she said. The words tasted too bare. “But I won’t lose myself to have you.” When my family died, I nearly lost myself to the grief. I can’t bear it again if I lost you.

He closed his eyes for an instant and opened them clear. “You won’t,” he said as he combed his hands through his hair. The unruly black hair. “Not to me.”

“Stand still,” she said, because she needed one thing she could control.

He went still—every muscle leashed—no reaching, no coaxing, only the kind of waiting that had kept doorways safe and stairs clear. The obedience of it, the control, slid under her anger and melted it to something hotter.

She rose into him and took his mouth because choice had to taste like him. The first brush hit sharp with temper; his breath caught—then he held steady, hands at his sides, until she caught one and set it at her waist. A tremor ran through his fingers. He took exactly the inch she gave. Heat unfurled—low, sure—when his thumb learned the curve there. She parted for him; he answered with a rough sound that lived against her tongue—matching her, never overrunning, as if her pace were the only rhythm he trusted. She ran her hands through his hair and held him close.

Not close enough.

She broke for air, and he followed a fraction; she touched two fingers to his jaw, and he stopped, chest heaving against hers.

“You’ll tell me first next time you want to decide something for me,” she breathed.

“Yes.”

“You won’t come to my shop unless I ask.”

“I won’t.” His voice rasped; it thrilled through her.

“If the raid comes—”

“I stand in front. If danger touches you, it has gone the wrong way.”

A hot tear slipped; he didn’t flinch toward it. The restraint steadied her more than any oath. “I am still angry,” she said, softer, raw.

“I know.” A beat. “May I?”

She nodded. He bent—careful—and pressed his mouth to the salt at her cheek. The tenderness of it undid her worse than heat. She caught his lapel and kissed him again, deep and slow, drawing a shiver from him that answered somewhere low in her spine.

“And if I don’t finish being angry?” she whispered against his mouth.

“I’ll be here anyway.”

Her hand found the small white pawn. Two fingers nudged it forward one square. The click sounded like a decision. “I’ll sign the lease,” she said, chin high. “On terms that favor me.”

“Please do.” He didn’t move his hand from her waist. “I’ll fetch the ink.”

“And later,” she added—because sending him away now carved a hollow she could not bake through—“you may walk me back to the kitchen.”

Relief flickered over his features and settled into something warm.

She stepped back first; he let her. The candle ringed him—bandaged leg, steady eyes, a man who would not cross a line she hadn’t drawn.

“Rosine,” he said.

She looked over her shoulder. “Yes?”

“Thank you for not wanting to lose me.”

“Don’t make me,” she answered.

“I won’t.” It sounded like a vow he’d keep even if it cost him.

In the quiet hall, warmth from the ovens drifted up—cinnamon, sugar, the kind of hope that holds. She slipped the pawn into her pocket and its smooth crown against her palm. Independence and him—if he keeps his word.

Chapter Ten