I slipped beneath the luxurious sheets, switching off the lamp by the bed. Darkness swallowed the room, broken only by the occasional flash of distant lightning.
I tried to sleep. I really did. But every sound Christian made on the sofa, every shift or movement, kept me wide awake. And when the storm began in earnest, thunder rattling the very bones of the house, sleep became impossible.
A particularly violent clap of thunder made me jolt upright in bed. I’d never admitted it to anyone, but storms had terrified me since childhood.
“Christian?” I whispered, my voice small in the dark.
“Yes?”
“Are you… awake?”
“Obviously,” he replied, and I could hear the smile in his voice.
Another rumble of thunder shook the windows, and I flinched.
“I… don’t really like storms.”
There was a pause, then the sound of him shifting on the couch.
“Want me to turn the light on?”
“No, it’s just that…”
A blinding flash filled the room, followed by a deafening crash that made me yelp, clapping a hand over my mouth. The words slipped out before I could stop them, “Could you… maybe lie here? Just until the storm passes?”
Even in the darkness, I could sense his hesitation.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” I swallowed hard. “Please.”
I heard him get up, his footsteps soft against the carpet. The mattress dipped slightly as he lay down beside me, keeping a respectful distance.
The heat of his body was palpable even without touching. My heartbeat slowed, despite another flash of lightning briefly illuminating the room. The thunder that followed didn’t feel quite as terrifying now.
“Better?” he asked, his voice gentler than I’d ever heard it.
“Yes,” I admitted, thankful for the dark hiding the blush on my face.
We lay in silence for a while, only the sound of the rain hammering against the windows filling the room.
“So… storms?” Christian finally asked, amusement lacing his tone. “Never figured you’d be afraid of something.”
“Everyone’s afraid of something.”
“And yours is storms. Why?”
I sighed, rolling onto my side to face him in the dim light.
“It’s a ridiculous story.”
“Now you have to tell me.”
I rolled my eyes, even though he probably couldn’t see.
“When I was eight, my cousin Edward dared me to explore the storage room during a storm.” I paused, the memory surprisingly vivid. “He said ghosts appear when it rains hard.”
Christian let out a low chuckle.
“And you believed him?”
“I was eight!” I protested, swatting what I hoped was his arm. “Anyway, we were in this dusty old storage room my dad used for junk, when a lightning bolt struck really close to the house. The lights went out, and I swear I saw something moving in the dark.”
“A ghost?”
“A cat. But at the time, I screamed so loud I tripped and fell off a wooden ladder my dad kept there. He used it to reach the higher shelves.”
Christian laughed outright now.
“Did you get hurt?”
“Broke my arm. And ever since, every time a storm starts, I remember that moment of absolute terror.
A louder crash of thunder made me instinctively edge closer to him. His hand found mine in the dark, fingers lacing with mine in a steady, grounding gesture.
“No ghost-cat’s gonna get you,” he murmured, and even without seeing, I could hear the smile in his voice.
I laughed, surprised at how safe I felt at his side.
“Your turn,” I said after a beat.
“My turn?”
“To tell me something embarrassing. Fair’s fair.”
He was quiet for so long I thought he wasn’t going to answer.
“Christian?”
“When I was twelve, I fell into a pool trying to impress my grandfather’s business partner’s daughter.” A soft laugh escaped him. “The problem was, I didn’t know how to swim.”
I gasped.
“What happened?”
“The gardener saved me. I coughed up water for an hour and swore off pools for a while.’
I smiled in the dark, picturing a younger Christian being dragged out of the water.
“And you got over the trauma.”
“Completely.” He shifted, lying on his side, probably facing me now. “My grandfather made me take lessons every day for months after that. Said no Kensington would ever be defeated by ‘a bit of water.”‘
“Your grandfather sounds… intense.”
“He is.” His voice changed, heavier now. “He practically raised me, you know? My parents were always more interested in the Euradian branches of the business than in me.”
My chest tightened.
“They were never around?”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.