Chapter 38

Brinley's lips parted as if she might swallow the words back, but she forced them out.

"Austin." Her voice trembled, then steadied. "Do you...do this often?"

He tilted his head, his gaze fixed on her in the dim light."Do what?"

"Manipulate people." The hesitation faded,replaced with quiet insistence. "Even me."

Austin didn't answer right away. A long silence stretched between them, heavy with things unspoken. At last, he said evenly, "In the Moore family, if I don't stay three steps ahead, I'Il end up falling into someone else's trap. I won't let that happen. And I won't let you get hurt either."

There was no mockery in his tone, no shield of arrogance-o nly a raw honesty that caught her off guard.

Though shadows hid the details of his face, Brinley could still catch the honesty shining through his words.

"I see," she murmured, her voice barely audible.

Curling onto her side with her back to Austin,she tried to still her racing thoughts. Onlya few minutes passed before the steady rhythm of his breathing filled the quiet room.

Unable to resist, she shifted just enough to steal a glance at him. A thin blade of moonlight slipping through the curtains sketched his face in sharp relief,highlighting the strong cut of his profile.

He looked as though sleep had already claimed him.

Her taut nerves loosened, yet rest still wouldn't come.

The dip in the mattress reminded her that he was there.

His scent drifted across the narrow space-crisp cedar-not heavy, but insidious, curling around her senses like smoke. The more she breathed it in, the wider awake she became.

A low murmur drifted from behind her. "Still awake?"The words carried an easy tone, but a quiet thread of curiosity wound through them.

Brinley's pulse faltered, and she instinctively stilled,her breath shallow. Her lashes fluttered despite her effort to remain composed.

She forced her chest to rise and fall in an even rhythm, fingers curling tightly into the sheet beneath her.

Austin didn't speak again, leaving the room to its hush.

Still, she couldn't shake the heat of his unseen gaze pressing against her back-steady, inquisitive,almost burning-raising goosebumps along her nape.

She dared not roll over, eyes clamped shut as if sleep had already claimed her, though her thougts wandered restlessly in the dark.

The clock on the nightstand marked each dragging second until its hands pointed to one in the morning.

Brinley's eyelids drooped heavier by the second, and just as she began sinking into real sleep, the mattress shifted under a subtle weight.

Her breath caught, every musce strung tight as she sensed his presence leaning closer, the warmth of his gaze pressing down over her like a shadow.

For one dizzying heartbeat, she thought his fingers would graze her hair-but the touch never came, the moment suspended in a fragile hesitation.

"Brinley." Austin's voice borushed against her ear,hushed and fleeting, like a sigh swallowed by the dark.

Her lashes trembled, a strange sensation unfurling in her chest.

She burrowed deeper into the mattress, giving a soft, <