The room seemed to tilt.
She tasted heat and memory and loneliness. His hand moved to the back of her neck, thumb brushing just below her ear, steadying her even as her breath hitched.
She had forgotten how he kissed.
Not hurried. Not careless. Every movement measured, coaxing rather than demanding. It pulled a quiet sound from her throat before she could stop it.
She leaned into him despite herself, the years of distance collapsing into that single moment.
His mouth softened, then pressed deeper again, as if asking a question he did not voice aloud.
Her answer came in the way her fingers tightened against him.
Time blurred.
The world outside the study ceased to exist.
When they finally broke apart, her breath came uneven, her lips tingling where his had been.
He did not release her immediately.
Neither spoke.
She forced herself to step back first, heart racing in a way she had not allowed in years.
“That,” she said softly, “changes nothing.”
His gaze darkened, though the corner of his mouth curved faintly. “Does it nae?”
She shook her head, though her pulse betrayed her.
Trust still stood between them like a locked door.
Her lips were still warm when they parted.
Iona did not move at first. She stood where she was, breath unsteady, waiting for the moment to fracture. Waiting for him to step back and call it reckless. To say it had been a lapse. A remnant of a past that should have stayed buried.
That was how these things went. A moment of closeness followed by regret.
She meant to step back but knocked her hip against the desk first, wincing slightly at the shock of the impact, and Frederick’s eyes landed on her skirts where the offense had taken place before slowly traveling back up the length of her body. His eyes on her warmed her to her very core.
Then he said, calmly, “Marry me.”
The words struck harder than the kiss.
She blinked; certain she had misheard.
“What?”
“Marry me,” he repeated, voice low, unhurried. No flourish. No kneeling. Just a statement lay between them like a blade on a table.
For a moment, she could not think. Her heart still raced from the closeness, from the way his hand had felt at her waist, and now this?
Marriage.
Her mind reeled through years of running. Of watching doors close when people learned too much. Of keeping secrets because trust had always come with a cost she could not afford.
“Ye… cannae be serious,” she said.