It began with paint.
Not storm-colored. Not fire. Just white.
A blank canvas. A new one. One Lennox hadn't touched.
And for once, he wanted her hand on it.
"Here," he said, holding out a brush. "You start it."
Isla blinked. "I don't paint."
"Exactly," he said. "That's why I want to see what happens."
She took the brush like it was a loaded question.
"Is this your version of therapy?"
"No," Lennox said, but the corner of his mouth twitched. "It's worse. It's trust."
The word landed with weight.
Trust.
She stepped toward the canvas. The cat, half-asleep in a corner, stretched and yawned like it couldn't be bothered with human tension.
She dipped the brush in blue—not midnight, not sky, but somewhere in between. The color of bruises that were finally healing.
She made one long stroke.
Then another.
Lennox watched her, not like an artist studying a subject—but like a man watching the exact moment his house caught fire and knowing he didn't want to put it out.
"I'm scared of what I am when I'm alone," she said softly, still painting. "Because I like it too much. The silence. The solitude. It's clean. It doesn't ask anything from me."
He didn't say anything. Just moved to stand beside her. Close enough that his shoulder brushed hers. Close enough that she could feel the heat of him. The steadiness.
"But then I come here," she continued, "and I remember what connection feels like. And it terrifies me more than the silence ever did."
She set the brush down, turned to face him.
His eyes were already on her. Unblinking. Unnerving in their gentleness.
"You think you're hard to love," he said. "But I think you just learned to survive on too little of it."
Her throat tightened.
"I'm not a soft landing, Lennox."
"I'm not asking for soft," he said. "I'm asking for true."
A beat.
The air shifted.
He stepped forward.
So did she.
And then—that moment. The one just before a kiss. The one the universe inhales for.
His hand brushed the edge of her jaw.
Her breath hitched.
Their mouths were inches apart. Not a metaphorical inch. A real one. Close enough to feel the exhale, to taste the hesitation.
Then—
A knock.
Sharp. Sudden.
Both of them jerked back.
The door.
Lennox frowned, moved to open it.
Outside stood a woman. Mid-thirties. Raincoat. No umbrella. Her hair dark and slicked down with mist. Her eyes, sharp and tired, went straight to Lennox's face.
"Lennox Vale?" she asked.
He hesitated. "Yeah."
"I'm Claire. Social worker. It's about your sister's estate. And the matter of guardianship."
Silence.
Ice in the room. Fast.
Isla took one step back, instincts curled tight.
Lennox blinked. "Guardianship?"
"There's a child, Mr. Vale," the woman said gently. "Did no one contact you?"
He didn't answer.
Because no—no one had.
And Isla?
She was watching the man she was falling for fall into a story he didn't know he was still inside.