Page 20 of Dissonance

I feel his hand before I register the movement, a gentle, absent brush against my shoulder where my hair falls. He loops a strand around his finger, the tendril coiling slowly before slipping free. He does it again, his knuckles grazing my neck with each pass.

Awareness prickles along my arms, the back of my neck, places he isn’t even touching. He doesn’t say anything, just keeps his eyes forward, his fingers moving, like he hasn’t noticed what he’s doing.

“How’s your brother?” I ask, because I need something to focus on that isn’t the attractive man playing with my hair like he has every right to.

“Still Laird of Glenelly.” His fingers pause briefly before continuing. “Still an insufferable asshole.”

I press my lips together, trying not to laugh. “Still wanting his baby brother home to help run the estate?”

That gets me a real smile, brief, rare, the one I’ve spent years stealing glances at because of how completely it changes his face. For that split second, he looks younger, less guarded, like the man I first met before I built these walls.

“Aye. He’s relentless.” His gaze drops to his fingers. “I told you his grandfather left the estate to him. Not me.”

“You know that’s not what your mother thinks. Or Archie.”

He hums to himself, clearly lost in a memory of his half-brother back in Scotland.

“You miss it?” I ask.

“Sometimes.” His brogue deepens around the words as he paints pictures of hills, stone walls, rain more mist than water. “Carallan’s a stunning place. Remote, green as far as the eye can see.”

“How often do you go back?”

He leans forward, grabs his wine, and takes a slow sip, eyes on mine as he murmurs, “Not enough.”

The LA skyline glitters gold and silver beyond the window. Out there, the city carries on without us—distant sirens, a helicopter crossing the dark—and in here, there’s only wine and jazz and the shrinking space between us.

“You look tired,” he says.

I pull back, laughing under my breath. “Thanks.”

“I’m serious, Thea.”

“I know.” I straighten slightly, tucking my hair behind my ear where he can no longer reach it. “It’s just…busy right now.”

“With Sip Station and Tyler?”

“With everything.”

His eyes stay on me, assessing in a way that makes my skin feel too tight. “You don’t have to carry all of it alone.”

It shouldn’t land differently when he says it. Not the way it does when it’s my father’s voice, framing help as evidence of failure, folding concern into doubt. Lockie offers it without agenda, without implication that needing support means I’ve slipped somewhere.

My fingers still on the stem of the wineglass, the familiar defensiveness flooding back in because it’s safer than reading into it.

“I’m not alone,” I say, a little sharper than I mean to. “I’ve got Mae and Olive.”

“That’s not what I mean.” The sofa creaks under his weight as he moves closer.

“I don’t like relying on people.” Pushing to my feet, I clear my throat and gather the empty dishes. “I should take these through.”

He nods, his eyes tracking me the entire way as I move past him. Setting the bowls beside the sink, I brace my hands on the counter, my apartment feeling too small, too full of him. I close my eyes, breathe in and out, trying to steady the parts I can already feel slipping.

I don’t hear him move, don’t feel the shift in the air until he’s already there, stepping in behind me, close enough that his warmth presses into my back. His hands appear on either side of me on the counter, caging me in without ever touching.

“Lachlan…” I breathe, in warning or a plea, I’m not sure.

His head dips, his breath ghosting over the curve of my shoulder where my sweatshirt’s slipped. The hair on the back of my neck rises, my fingers tightening on the counter’s edge.