The waltz ended in a flourish of strings and polite applause.
Camilla curtsied to Adrian, her smile perfectly rehearsed, but her chest felt tight — and not from the corset. She needed air.
Slipping away from the crowd, she drifted toward the terrace doors. The moment she stepped outside, the cool night wrapped around her, carrying the faint scent of roses and distant rain.
"Running away again, Miss Fairbourne?"
Her heart stuttered. She turned to see Xavier leaning against the stone balustrade, half in shadow. The moonlight silvered the edge of his jaw, his dark hair falling slightly loose from its earlier precision.
"Just… breathing," she replied, her tone lighter than she felt.
He studied her for a long moment before turning his gaze toward the gardens. "It's quieter out here."
She stepped closer, expecting the heat from before, the same charged glances and stolen breath. But his expression was unreadable now, his voice cool and distant.
"About earlier—" she began.
"It was nothing," he cut in, the words smooth but sharp enough to sting.
Nothing.
She blinked, unsure if she'd heard him right. "Nothing?"
"A mistake," he said simply, though his jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "Best forgotten."
A dozen retorts crowded her tongue — Liar. Then why are you here? Why did you kiss me like— — but she swallowed them all.
Instead, she turned her gaze to the gardens, fighting to keep her voice steady. "Then you've already forgotten?"
His silence stretched between them, long enough for her pulse to trip in panic and frustration. When he finally spoke, his tone was clipped. "Go back inside, Camilla. Someone will notice you're gone."
She stared at him for a heartbeat longer, trying to read the shadows in his eyes, before she lifted her skirts and returned to the ballroom without another word.
---
Over the next days, the memory of his touch wouldn't leave her — but every time they crossed paths in the manor, Xavier was polite, formal… and utterly distant. He spoke to her in company like she was any other guest, as if that firelit moment had been nothing more than a figment of her imagination.
It should have made her forget him.
It only made her want to break through his walls.