✶✶✶
“MILADY, Sir Kurt Ozhorn is here to see you.”
“Thank you, Emma. Please, let him in.”
It was just around the time they’d finished crying, had a laugh about it, and finished choosing the last of the garments when Kurt showed up.
“Ms. Sophie, I hope I’m not intruding,” came that familiar, squarish voice, though today, it seemed slightly rounded at the edges—just Sophie’s imagination? As he stepped through the door, he came to a sudden halt. A rare show of surprise from the man at seeing Sophie’s mother in the room with her.
“Hello,” Sherlotte said warmly, standing to greet him. “I’m Sophie’s mother. Sherlotte Olzon.”
“Hello.” Kurt nodded with polite formality. “My apologies for not introducing myself the other day. Kurt Ozhorn.”
The other day—the proposal day—had ended in chaos, in the best way. Moments after it all, the men hoisted Kurt out the door, congratulating him with backslaps and cheers, parading him around town like some returning war hero. A bit of old-fashioned hooliganism followed, then a bar, and they hadn’t returned until sunrise. Johann, ringleader of it all, was still in bed, groaning through what sounded like a catastrophic hangover.
The women, meanwhile, had held a quieter sort of banquet in Sophie’s salon. So, in their own way, they’d done much the same.
“We were just sorting through Sophie’s wardrobe,” Sherlotte said. “Choosing what she’ll take to her new home. Do you have any favorites? Anything you particularly like on her?”
“On Ms. Sophie? As in an outfit?”
“That’s right.”
Kurt paused, then grew suddenly earnest. “I’m afraid not. I was always too busy looking at her to notice what she was wearing.”
Sherlotte laughed softly, slipping into a smile at his deadly seriousness.
“Ah, youth. So very wasted on the young,” she said with a sigh of theatrical resignation.
Then, with a graceful turn, she began to gather her things. “Well then. We’re just about finished here. I’ll make myself scarce. I’ll ask someone to bring you tea—and then see to it no one disturbs you for a good, long while.”
She moved toward the door, and with one last glance over her shoulder—half amusement, half affection—she slipped out.
The door swung shut behind her, leaving only a soft current of suggestion in the air.
✦ ✦ ✦
✶✶✶
THE quiet, secluded space of Sophie’s salon.
Now, theirs alone.
The kind of space shared by lovers, though, for now, they simply sat side by side, sipping tea. The only sound was the soft clink of porcelain, echoing louder than it had any right to in the stillness of the room. On Sophie’s right, Kurt sat close—closer than necessary, pressed tightly to her side.
“Are you comfortable there, Mr. Ozhorn?” Sophie asked.
“I’m your fiancé,” he replied. “Why shouldn’t I be? And soon, you’ll be Mrs. Ozhorn, so perhaps you could stop calling me that?”
“Right. You’re very right.” A moment of gritted teeth. “…Mr. Kurt.”
She glanced at him from the corner of her eye, trying to gauge his reaction.
What met her gaze were his dark eyes—steady, unreadable, and yet…deeply focused. Closer than she had ever imagined being allowed to see them.
“Again,” he said.
“Kurt.” Sophie obliged.
This time, he wordlessly turned toward her and leaned in until the elegant curve of his ear hovered just before her lips.
“Kurt,” she whispered once more, this time with care, her voice delicate in its enunciation.
“Ngh—!” Kurt recoiled suddenly, clutching his head with one hand as if struck.
He stayed like that for a while, hunched over, unmoving.
Then, at last, in a voice low and strained:
“Ms. Sophie.”
“Yes?”
“You know how the farther you draw a bowstring, the more force it unleashes?”
“I suppose I do.”
“Well.” His voice dropped, tight with effort. “I’m drawn to my very edge. You might do well to consider what that means.”
“My, how frightening.”
“We still can’t, then?”
“Not until the wedding.”
Kurt’s head dropped in defeat.
She laughed under her breath. The sort of laugh one tried to smother but couldn’t quite help. He made it too easy, teasing a man wound so tight.
She reached out slowly, fingers threading gently through his dark hair.
“What about a kiss?” she asked, voice hushed.
His head snapped up.
There was something alight in his eyes now. Something raw and bright, tempered only by the discipline that held him still.
“A kiss,” he repeated. “Yes. I would very much like a kiss. Perhaps a hundred more than you’d think sensible. Tell me, Ms. Sophie. We are engaged, are we not?”
“We are.”
“And a kiss, well…it’s customary.”
“So they say.”
He took her hand. Drew nearer still.
“Well then. I love you, Ms. Sophie.”
“And I love you.”
“Then surely, there’s no harm in what I’m about to do.”
“If it’s just the lips, no.”
They were so close now. Just a breath and their noses would meet.
“Only the lips, Mr. Kurt,” she whispered. “Not a hair more. Not until I take your name.”
He made a sound like a man being tested beyond reason.
“You can manage that much longer, can’t you?”
She watched his gaze darken, felt it fill her vision. Her eyelids fluttered shut, and a soft sigh caught in her throat. Today would be the day. The day she finally tasted the lips of a—
“Ah—damn it!”
The voice came not from beside her but…halfway across the salon?
“As if I’d stop at just the lips!” Kurt shouted—though it sounded nothing like the Kurt she knew.
Sophie blinked.
Then smiled.
How fun, she thought.
Though surely he knew she might’ve let him go just a little farther than that.