Frozen vows

THE SLOW THAW

SIENNA'S POV

I signed the contract on a Tuesday. By Wednesday evening, I was standing in the foyer of Blackwood Tower, my single duffel bag clutched against my chest, feeling smaller than I'd ever felt in my life.

The penthouse was obscene. Floor-to-ceiling windows that framed the city like a painting. Marble floors so polished I could see my own reflection staring back at me, wide-eyed, out of place, a stray cat who'd wandered into a palace. The furniture was minimalist and expensive, all clean lines and muted colors, and everything smelled like cedar and leather and something else I couldn't name. Something that smelled like him.

Kael stood a few feet away, his hands in his pockets, his white hair loose around his shoulders. He'd barely spoken on the drive from my apartment. He'd barely spoken since I'd signed my name on the dotted line.

"Ms. Vance will show you to your room," he said, nodding toward a tall, angular woman in a black pantsuit who had appeared from somewhere without making a sound. "If you need anything, she'll arrange it."

"Your room," I repeated. "Not ours."

Something flickered in his gray eyes. "That's what the contract stipulates."

"Right. The contract." I adjusted my grip on the duffel bag. "I almost forgot I signed my soul away."

Ms. Vance's expression didn't change, but I caught a flicker of something, surprise, maybe, or amusement, before she smoothed it away. "This way, Mrs. Blackwood."

Mrs. Blackwood. The name felt like a costume. Like a dress that didn't fit.

I followed her down a hallway wide enough to drive a car through. The bedroom she led me to was larger than my entire apartment. The bed was a king-sized platform draped in white linens. The closet was stocked with clothes I hadn't picked out. The bathroom had a tub deep enough to drown in.

"Mr. Blackwood's quarters are on the opposite wing," Ms. Vance informed me. "He requests that you don't enter without invitation."

"Of course he does."

"Dinner is at eight. Formal attire is expected." She gave me one final, empty smile. "Welcome home."

She left, and I stood alone in the center of the room, surrounded by luxury I hadn't earned and didn't want. Home. This wasn't home. This was a gilded cage with better furniture.

I unpacked my duffel bag because I didn't know what else to do. My worn clothes looked ridiculous in the walk-in closet, hung beside designer dresses that still had their tags. I ran my fingers over the fabrics, silk, cashmere, velvet and felt nothing but exhaustion.

What had I done?

***

The first week was the hardest.

Kael and I existed in the same space without actually existing together. We ate dinner at opposite ends of a table long enough to seat twelve. We passed each other in hallways with curt nods and averted eyes. He worked eighteen-hour days in his office on the seventy-ninth floor. I wandered the penthouse like a ghost, touching things I was afraid to break.

The silence was suffocating.

By day four, I'd memorized every corner of the penthouse. The library with its first editions and rolling ladders. The rooftop garden with its koi pond and cherry blossom trees. The kitchen where a chef appeared twice a day to prepare meals I barely touched. It was beautiful. It was luxurious. It was the loneliest place I'd ever been.

On day five, I found the piano.

It was tucked in a corner of the library, half-hidden behind a bookshelf, as if someone had tried to forget it was there. A grand piano, black and gleaming, with a layer of dust on the keys. I sat on the bench and ran my fingers over the ivory. My mother, my foster mother, the one who'd kept me for two years before the state moved me again, had taught me to play. Music is the only thing that can't hurt you, she'd said. Remember that.

I played a few chords. The sound was out of tune, rusty, but it filled the silence in a way that made my chest ache.

"You play."

I spun on the bench. Kael stood in the doorway, still in his suit from whatever meeting he'd just finished, his white hair slightly disheveled. He looked as surprised to see me as I was to see him.

"I didn't know you were there," I said.

"I didn't mean to interrupt."

"You're not." I turned back to the piano. "I was just... remembering."

He didn't leave. I expected him to. Instead, he crossed the room and stood beside the piano, one hand resting on the polished wood. "I didn't know this was here."

"It's a beautiful instrument. Someone should play it."

"My wife did." The words came out stiff. "Elara. She played. After she died, I couldn't bear to look at it. I had it moved in here."

I looked up at him. His face was unreadable, but his jaw was tight. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…"

"Don't apologize. It's just a piano." But his voice was rough, and his hand lingered on the wood like he was touching something precious. "Will you play something? I'd... I'd like to hear it."

I nodded and turned back to the keys. I didn't play anything complicated, just a simple melody, something soft and sad that my foster mother had taught me when I was twelve. The notes filled the library like water, and for a few minutes, the silence between us didn't feel so heavy.

When I finished, Kael was still standing there. His expression had shifted. Softened.

"That was beautiful," he said.

"I'm out of practice."

"Still beautiful."

Our eyes met, and something passed between us. Something I didn't have a name for.

"I should go," he said, but he didn't move.

"You don't have to."

He stayed.

***

The second week was different.

Small things changed. Kael started eating breakfast with me instead of taking it in his office. He asked questions, about my childhood, my time in foster care, the diner where I'd worked. I gave him the sanitized version, and he didn't push. He told me about his father in return, in fragments. The man had been cold. Demanding. Impossible to please.

"I think we have that in common," I said one morning. "Terrible parents."

"Terrible parents," he echoed, and almost smiled.

We walked in the rooftop garden together in the evenings. He pointed out the constellations,he knew their names, their histories, their mythologies and I listened, letting his voice wash over me. He was different when he talked about the stars. Less guarded. More human.

"Why do you know so much about astronomy?" I asked one night, my head tipped back to look at the sky.

"Because the stars don't lie," he said. "They don't betray you. They just... burn. Constant and predictable. I found that comforting."

I turned to look at him. In the starlight, his white hair glowed like a halo. "You don't trust people easily."

"No."

"Neither do I."

He looked at me then, really looked and I felt the weight of his attention like a spotlight. "But you trust me a little more than you did last week."

"Maybe."

"That's enough for now."

***

By the third week, I'd stopped feeling like a stranger in my own home.

We'd developed a rhythm. Breakfast together. Separate days, him in his office, me exploring the tower or reading in the library. Dinner together. Then, more often than not, we'd end up in the same room in the evenings. Sometimes talking. Sometimes just existing in the same space.

I learned things about him. He took his coffee black but always added one sugar cube when he thought no one was looking. He had a scar on his left palm from a childhood accident he wouldn't discuss. He read biographies of dead philosophers and underlined passages in pencil. He never raised his voice, even when he was angry.

And he was angry often, at his board, at Guilford, at the world that had labeled him a murderer. But he never aimed that anger at me. Not once.

One evening, I found him in the library. He was sitting in an armchair with a book, but he wasn't reading. He was staring at the fireplace, his expression distant.

"Kael?"

He looked up, and the mask slipped for just a moment. I saw exhaustion. Sadness. Something that looked almost like longing.

"Sit with me," he said.

I sat on the couch across from him. The fire crackled. The silence stretched.

"What are you thinking about?" I asked.

"Elara," he admitted. "Today would have been our anniversary."

My heart clenched. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It was a long time ago." But his voice was thick. "I just... I keep thinking about what she'd say if she could see me now. Married to someone else. Bound by a pact she died trying to escape."

"What do you think she'd say?"

He was quiet for a moment. "I think she'd be angry. Then I think she'd understand. She always understood more than I gave her credit for."

I didn't know what to say. So I did what felt natural. I moved to the armchair and sat on the armrest beside him. I didn't touch him. I just... stayed.

He looked up at me, and his gray eyes were wet. "You're not what I expected, Sienna."

"What did you expect?"

"Someone weak. Someone I could keep at a distance." He exhaled. "You're neither of those things."

"Neither are you."

He reached up and touched my face, just his fingertips against my cheek, light as a whisper. "I'm sorry it took me so long to see you. Really see you."

"You see me now."

"Yes." His thumb traced the line of my jaw. "I see you now."

I leaned into his touch. "Kael?"

"Yes?"

"Kiss me."

He did.

It wasn't like the desperate kisses I'd read about in romance novels. It wasn't fire and urgency and crashing together like waves. It was soft. Slow. His lips brushed mine like a question, and I answered by threading my fingers into his white hair and pulling him closer.

The kiss deepened. His hand slid to the back of my neck, and I felt the warmth of his palm against my skin. I tasted coffee and sadness and something sweet underneath. Something that felt like a beginning.

When we finally broke apart, we were both breathing hard.

"That was…" I started.

"I know," he said.

"I wasn't expecting…"

"Neither was I."

I pressed my forehead to his. "What does this mean? For the contract? For us?"

He was quiet for a moment. Then he pulled back just enough to look at me. "It means I was wrong. About everything. About being able to keep you at a distance. About not wanting to feel anything." His thumb traced my cheekbone. "You make me want to feel again. And that terrifies me more than Guilford ever could."

"It terrifies me too."

"But you're still here."

"I'm still here."

He kissed me again, just once, soft and brief. "Then that's enough. For now."

We stayed like that for a long time, tangled together in the armchair, watching the fire burn down to embers. Outside, the city glittered. Inside, two broken people held onto each other and tried to remember what hope felt like.

It was a start.