Chapter 532

Chapter 532:

He looked at Isolde’s hand resting open on the grey silk. It was relaxed now. He reached out slowly and took it.

Her hand was warm. Rougher than it used to be. There were calluses on her fingertips, small scars on her knuckles — marks of work, of a life he knew nothing about. He had always assumed it was from housework. Now he found himself wondering whether it was from soldering irons and metalwork.

He wrapped his hand around hers and held on. It was an instinctive, desperate gesture. An anchor.

Isolde stirred. Seeking warmth in her sleep, her fingers curled. She squeezed his hand.

Grayson stopped breathing.

Wh𝘢t 𝗲𝘃e𝗿уоո𝗲 𝘪s 𝗿𝘦𝘢𝖽𝘪𝗇𝘨 о𝗇

The sensation moved up his arm and detonated in his chest. She was holding him. She didn’t know it was him, but she was holding him.

He didn’t pull away. He couldn’t.

He shifted his position, sliding down to sit on the floor beside the bed with his back against the mattress, their joined hands resting on the bedspread between them. With his free hand, he pulled his iPad onto his lap.

He sat there as the hours moved past. He answered emails. He reviewed contracts. He watched the sunrise paint the sky in shades of bruised purple and bleeding orange.

He never let go.

Around six, Effie woke. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, taking in the room. She saw her mother sleeping. She saw the man — the scary man — sitting on the floor, holding her mother’s hand.

Grayson met the child’s eyes and put a finger to his lips.

Effie blinked. She looked at their joined hands. She looked at Grayson’s exhausted face. Then she climbed quietly from the sofa and padded over, leaning close to whisper.

“Daddy, Mommy’s crying p>

Grayson’s chest tightened. In the warm lamplight, a single tear was sliding slowly down Isolde’s cheek.

He rose, hesitated for just a moment, then reached out and wiped it away with his thumb — his touch entirely unlike the cold authority he had wielded downstairs the night before.

Effie watched quietly from beside the sofa, then asked in a small, serious voice, “Daddy, do you love Mommy p>

Grayson went still. He looked at his daughter, then at Isolde, and was silent for a long moment.

“I don’t know,” he said at last, his voice rough. “But I know I don’t want her to cry anymore p>

As if in response, Isolde’s hand — still weak — lifted slightly and closed around his wrist, holding on and refusing to let go.

Grayson settled back onto the floor beside the bed, her hand in his, and stayed there as the morning light grew.

For the first time in as long as he could remember, he had sat up through the night not for work, but for someone else. He did not sleep at all.

Sunlight, bright and intrusive, sliced through the gap in the heavy velvet curtains and fell directly across Isolde’s face.