OFF LIMIT

Chapter 2

I heard him before I saw him.

That was almost worse.

His voice carried up the stairwell, deep and raspy in a way that hadn't changed in five years, greeting my mother a little too loudly, the way he always talked when he was trying to fill a room with warmth instead of whatever he actually felt.

I would have known that voice anywhere.

I'd spent five years trying to forget the exact sound of it and failing every single time.

I was still standing in the middle of my room, one hand pressed flat against my stomach like that might actually settle anything, when Sienna glanced toward the door.

"That's my dad."

She was already reaching for her phone to check her lipstick in the camera, entirely unbothered, entirely unaware of what those three words had just done to me.

"Come on, everyone's probably down there by now."

I nodded and didn't move.

The last time we'd spoken, really spoken, had been two months ago.

A text, not a call.

He rarely called, and I'd told myself that was easier, safer, something I could answer on my own terms instead of having to control my voice in real time.

Just checking in. Haven't heard from you in a while. Everything alright? Let me know if you need anything.

Twelve words that had taken me an embarrassing amount of time to reply to, drafted and deleted a dozen times before I settled on something short and unremarkable.

Everything's perfect. Just busy with school. Thank you for checking on me.

A lie, dressed up as gratitude.

I had read his message four times in the parking lot of my apartment building, sitting in my car with the engine off, feeling something in my chest twist itself into a shape I didn't have a name for.

Then I'd typed three careful, harmless sentences and gone inside and cried for reasons I refused to examine too closely.

That had been two months ago.

Now there was a hallway, a staircase, a foyer somewhere below us, and the actual, physical distance of maybe fifty feet between us, and somehow that felt far more dangerous than an ocean ever had.

"Bella."

Sienna was watching me now, head tilted, some of the excitement dimming into concern.

"You okay? You've gone a little pale."

"I'm fine."

I made myself smile, made myself reach for my heels by the closet door, anything to look like a woman who was simply nervous about a homecoming party and not one who was about to walk downstairs and see, for the first time in five years, the only man she had ever really wanted.

"Just nervous. It's been a while."

"It's just family."

She looped her arm through mine, tugging me gently toward the door.

"You go on ahead, I'll be right behind you. Actually, no, I'll go first, tell them you're finishing up."

"Give me a few minutes," I said. "I'll be right down."

She squeezed my hand once and disappeared through the door, her footsteps light and quick on the stairs, her voice already joining the rising hum of conversation below.

Five minutes, I told myself.

I'll give myself five minutes.

It became thirty.

I sat in front of my mirror and reapplied lipstick I didn't need to reapply.

I checked my reflection from every angle, told myself I looked fine, told myself this was ridiculous, that I was a grown woman who had built an entire life on another continent, and none of it changed the fact that my hands wouldn't stop shaking every time I thought about walking into that room.

I breathed.

I counted.

I thought about every version of tonight I'd rehearsed on the flight home, every calm, unaffected version of myself I'd promised I would be.

And I made myself believe it, at least enough to stand up and walk to the door.

Downstairs, the house was filled with the particular chaos of the family.

I could hear my uncle's booming laugh before I even reached the landing, the sound as familiar as the house itself.

My father's older brother, Uncle Richard, had always laughed like he wanted the whole room to hear it, and clearly five years hadn't changed that either.

His wife, Aunt Carol, would be somewhere nearby, quieter, always watching everything with sharp, assessing eyes.

And their daughters, my cousins Vanessa and Whitney, would be exactly where they always were, close together, already finding something to whisper about.

I loved my family.

That much had never been in question.

But loving them and wanting to spend an evening in a room with Vanessa and Whitney were two very different things.

They had spent most of my childhood making me feel like an afterthought at every gathering, too sensitive, too quiet, too easily hurt by comments they insisted were just jokes.

Oh, don't mind Isabella, she cries about everything.

I'd heard some version of that sentence more times than I could count growing up, and it was one of the reasons I'd clung so hard to Sienna instead.

Sienna had never once made me feel like my feelings were something to be managed or mocked.

She'd just let me feel them.

We had grown up more like sisters than friends, and some days I thought she understood me better than my own family did.

My mother's younger sister, Aunt Diane, would be there too, with her husband, kinder company by far.

My brother would arrive later with his fiancée, running on his usual schedule of being fifteen minutes behind wherever he needed to be.

Gabriel and I used to be inseparable growing up, partners in crime, the two of us against the world in the particular way siblings close in age often are.

Somewhere in the last several years, that closeness had quietly frayed.

He'd moved out, built his own life, gotten engaged, and the distance between us had crept in so slowly I couldn't point to the exact moment it happened.

I missed him more than I let myself admit most days.

And somewhere in the middle of all of it, unavoidable, immovable, was Theo.

I took one last breath at the top of the stairs and made myself walk down.

Every head turned as I reached the bottom step.

That was the way it always went at these things, the returning daughter, the center of attention for exactly as long as it took everyone to say hello and ask the same three questions.

How was the flight? How was life abroad? Are you seeing anyone?

I smiled.

I let myself be hugged.

I let my uncle's booming voice wash over me and my aunt's sharp eyes catalogue every visible change in five years.

But my gaze went to exactly one person, and stayed there a beat too long before I forced it away.

He was standing near the fireplace, a glass of something amber in his hand, wearing a dark suit that fit him the way expensive suits always did, like they'd been built around him rather than put on.

He looked older in the ways that mattered and exactly the same in every way that didn't.

Sharper around the eyes.

A little more silver at his temples.

And that same stillness, that same quiet authority that used to make grown men in his boardrooms sit up straighter.

He was watching me.

Not obviously, not in any way anyone else in the room would have noticed.

But I noticed.

I had spent five years learning every version of his attention, and this one, quiet and careful, was one I recognized instantly.

I pulled myself together and turned toward the rest of the room instead.

"Look who finally remembered we exist," Vanessa said, air-kissing my cheek with the particular brand of sweetness that always had teeth underneath it. "Five years, Isabella. We were starting to think you'd forgotten us completely."

"I was studying, not on a beach somewhere."

I kept my voice light, practiced.

I'd had a lot of years to practice not reacting to Vanessa.

"Sure, sure."

Whitney's smile matched her sister's exactly.

"Well, you're here now. That's what matters."

Dinner was announced not long after, and the table filled with the particular noise of a large family settling into their usual seats, arguing lightly over wine and passing dishes, asking me the same rotating set of questions about my program, my flight, whether the city I'd lived in was as beautiful as it looked in pictures.

I answered all of it as pleasantly as I could manage, aware the entire time of exactly where Theo was sitting, close enough that I could hear his low voice threading through other conversations without ever quite catching what he said.

It was somewhere between the main course and dessert that Whitney leaned forward, wine glass in hand, an entirely too-interested look on her face.

"So, Isabella. Five years abroad, and no ring, no boyfriend to bring home. Please tell me you at least found someone interesting over there."

The table's attention shifted toward me, mild and curious in the way these things always were.

I felt my pulse pick up, not because of the question itself, but because of who was sitting close enough to hear the answer.

"Actually," I said, keeping my voice deliberately casual, deliberately light, "there might be someone."

It wasn't true.

There had been no one, not really, not anyone who'd lasted longer than a few dates before I found some reason to end it.

But I said it anyway, watching from the corner of my eye for exactly one reaction, wanting, needing, some flicker of something to cross Theo's face.

His expression didn't change at all.

He took a slow sip of his drink, glanced toward whoever had spoken next, some question from my aunt about wedding planning, and moved on entirely, as smooth and unaffected as if I'd commented on the weather.

Something in my chest sank lower than I wanted to admit.

Of course it did.

Why would it be any different?

Dinner wound down slowly, the way it always did in this house, plates cleared, wine refilled, conversation drifting into smaller, quieter clusters.

My uncle and aunt disappeared onto the back terrace with my mother.

Vanessa and Whitney migrated to the living room with their phones.

Sienna caught my eye across the room, mouthed you okay? and I nodded, even though I wasn't entirely sure it was true.

I found my way into the kitchen, glad for a moment alone, and busied myself rinsing a stray dish someone had left in the sink, more for something to do with my hands than out of any real need.

"You disappeared."

I turned too fast, nearly knocking the dish towel off the counter.

He was leaning in the doorway, tie loosened, that same low, raspy voice landing somewhere low in my stomach before my brain even caught up to the fact that we were alone.

"I noticed you'd gone quiet at the table."

He stepped further into the kitchen, unhurried, the way he did everything.

"Thought I'd make sure you were alright."

"I'm fine."

I turned back to the sink, giving myself something to do with my hands, grateful for the excuse not to look at him directly.

"It's a lot, being back. I just needed a minute."

"Understandable."

He came to lean against the counter a few feet away, close enough that I was aware of every inch of the distance between us, far enough that it meant absolutely nothing to him.

"This house has a way of doing that. Too many memories in too small a space."

I dried my hands slowly, aware of my own pulse in a way that felt almost embarrassing.

He wasn't doing anything.

He was simply standing there, watching me with that same steady, careful concern he'd had for me my entire life, the exact expression of a man checking on his best friend's daughter, nothing more complicated than that.

And still my whole body reacted like he'd said something dangerous.

"You didn't have to check on me," I said, keeping my voice light. "I'm not going to fall apart in the kitchen."

"I know that."

Something almost like a smile touched his mouth.

"You're stronger than you give yourself credit for. Always have been."

It should have felt like a compliment.

Mostly it just felt like proof of exactly how he saw me, still, after everything.

Strong.

Capable.

Someone who didn't need to be worried about in any way that mattered.

"So."

He shifted, crossing his arms loosely, settling in like he had somewhere to be but wasn't in a hurry to get there.

"What's next for you? Now that the degree's finished."

"I'm still figuring that out."

I leaned back against the counter across from him, grateful for the distance the island put between us.

"Looking at a few positions. Trying to decide if I want to stay in the city or come back here."

"You know there's a place for you at the company, if you want it."

He said it simply, without any weight behind it, the way he might mention the weather.

"Your father would have wanted that. And frankly, so do I."

The offer landed somewhere complicated in my chest, gratitude and something else tangled together.

"I appreciate that. Really. But I think I need to build something that's mine first. Not something that comes with his name already attached to it."

Something shifted in his expression, something that looked almost like approval.

"That's a good instinct. He would have understood that better than anyone."

We talked for a while after that, easier than I expected, about my program, the thesis I'd finished on emerging market strategy, the two internships that had eaten most of my final year.

He asked good questions, the kind that meant he was actually listening, not just making conversation, and for a few minutes I let myself forget to be careful.

"Did you miss it?" he asked eventually. "Home, I mean."

"Yeah."

The word came out quieter than I intended, more honest than I meant it to be.

"A lot, actually."

He gave me a small, almost absent smile.

"Good," he said simply.

"It missed you too."

I looked at him for a second.

There was nothing hidden in his expression. No hesitation. No second meaning.

Just warmth.

Just familiarity.

Just Theo being Theo.

And somehow, that hurt more than if there had been something else.

Because I'd spent five years carrying feelings he didn't know existed, building entire conversations in my head that had never happened, wondering what it would be like if he ever looked at me and saw something other than the girl he'd known all her life.

But standing there with him now, I was reminded of the truth.

He hadn't changed.

I had.

And maybe that was the most dangerous part of coming home.