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"Someone Reminded Her"

Summary: Arthur's teasing sends Leonardo and Cassandra escaping into a rain-soaked Paris park for "just a walk." What follows is one ancient tree, one forgotten fountain, several dangerous admissions, and the slow realization that the most terrifying discovery Leonardo da Vinci has ever made...might just be love.

Fandom: Ikevamp Word Count: ~11,684

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The sky had been undecided all afternoon.

It hung low over the park in veils of pearl and smoke, the clouds gathered in soft, bruised layers above the long green sweep of lawns and gravel paths. Paris had taken on that strange, breathless hush it wore before rain, when every leaf seemed to turn its pale underside toward heaven and every sound traveled farther than it should.

Cassandra walked beside Leonardo beneath the chestnut trees, her hand tucked lightly in the crook of his arm.

The path was even. The afternoon was amiable. There was no danger except the ridiculous, impossible danger of being near him when the world had gone quiet and silver around the edges.

Leonardo, of course, looked entirely unbothered by this.

He moved with that loose, unhurried grace that made ordinary motion seem like music. His coat hung open over his waistcoat, his shirt collar slightly undone as though he had never once in his life been properly conquered by buttons. The wind had worried a few strands of his dark hair loose, and they curled near his cheek in a way Cassandra found personally unfair.

He turned toward her, the movement as unhurried as everything else about him. Damp light slipped across the line of his cheekbone, catching in dark lashes that always seemed unfairly long for a man. Wind had coaxed loose several strands of bronzed hair, leaving them to curl carelessly against his temple. There was something infuriatingly effortless about him, as though the world simply arranged itself more beautifully whenever he stepped into it.

His amber eyes found hers. “Cara mia,” he said, voice warm with amusement, “you’re staring.”

“I’m observing.” She abandoned his eyes with suspicious haste, becoming fascinated by the gravel beneath her boots. It had done absolutely nothing interesting, but at least it wasn't looking back at her. “You of all people should respect a person’s right to observation.”

“Observing me?” The corner of his mouth tipped upward with the modest satisfaction of a man who already knew the answer.

The smile that accompanied the question should have been classified as hazardous. Leonardo smiled with his whole face, but never all at once. It always began at one corner of his mouth, as though amusement had arrived first and the rest of him was reluctantly following. She had started noticing these things weeks ago.

That had been a terrible mistake.

She abandoned his eyes with suspicious haste, becoming fascinated by the gravel beneath her boots. The corner of her mouth had already started smiling before she'd looked away.

“The weather,” she lied.

“Weather’s up there.” He tipped his chin toward the cloud-laden sky.

She gave him the sort of look one reserves for people committed to being insufferably attractive. “I’m being thorough. Weather does affect things down here as well, you know.”

His laugh rolled airily through the space between them, rich and warm, carrying the sort of effortless affection that always seemed to find the weakest places in her defenses. It should have been impossible for a sound alone to make her pulse stumble. Leonardo continued proving otherwise.

They had left the mansion after lunch under the pretense of fresh air.

In truth, they had fled.

Arthur had declared, with the mournful gravity of a man announcing the collapse of civilization, that it was utterly impossible to finish a chapter while "two hopeless romantics insist on glowing in the common areas."

Leonardo had answered with a long-suffering sigh and a spectacular roll of his eyes.

Cassandra, unfortunately, had turned the exact color of the strawberries Arthur had been eating.

Arthur had noticed.

Naturally.

He’s leaned forward at once, delight sharpening his expression as though he had just stumbled upon an especially elegant crime.

"Observe! I create the blush..." He’d swept one hand toward Cassandra. "...and Leonardo gets that absurdly soft look on his face."

Leonardo’s head turned with slow, offended dignity. One dark brow drew down while the other lifted, and the faint ardor Arthur had accused him of vanished beneath an expression of carefully constructed disbelief.

"I do not."

Arthur had paid him no heed. "A remarkable ecosystem."

"I assure you..."

Arthur had pointed at him with the half-eaten strawberry. "You've got it now."

Sebastian had sighed without looking up from the silver he was polishing. "He is correct."

Cassandra’s soul had attempted to leave her body.

When that failed, she’d considered slipping quietly beneath the dining table and beginning an entirely new life there. She imagined it might be peaceful among the chair legs. Dim. Private. Refreshments could perhaps be lowered discreetly on a string.

Leonardo looked, for perhaps half a heartbeat, genuinely caught off guard.

His eyes had shifted toward Sebastian. His mouth parted, then closed again, as though his mind had rejected several possible responses before settling upon wounded disbelief

"...Sebastian?"

"Regrettably." Only then did Sebastian raise his gaze, his expression grave with the patience of a man standing at the edge of a very familiar abyss. "Young master Arthur."

Arthur had widened his eyes in crystalline innocence and took another bite of the strawberry. "What?"

"If you continue..."

Arthur had chewed lazily, apparently savoring both the fruit and his own impending destruction.

Sebastian’s polishing cloth had still.

Arthur had grinned with the fearless confidence of a man who had survived Sebastian's disappointment many times before. "I was merely making an observation."

"You were inviting your own funeral."

Leonardo had stood, taken Cassandra's hand with effortless calm, and said, "Come, cara mia."

"Have a lovely courtship!" Arthur had called after them before the front door had even closed. "And kiss at least once! Otherwise you've wasted perfectly good weather!"

The door shut on Leonardo's groan.

Arthur's laughter still managed to follow them outside anyway.

Only a walk.

That was what Leonardo had said, with his hands in his pockets and his expression careless. As though a walk with him could ever be only anything.

Now they wandered beneath the chestnut trees as the afternoon dimmed into enchanted shades of silver and pearl. The air carried the scent of damp bark, crushed grass, and fresh bread drifting from a boulangerie beyond the park gates. Children's laughter skipped somewhere through the trees, bright enough to sound almost visible.

Ahead of them, an absurdly tiny dog launched itself at a flock of pigeons with all the confidence of a conquering emperor.

The pigeons barely acknowledged its existence.

Cassandra watched the furious little charge, and before she realized it, a smile had unfolded across her face.

It always happened that way.

Smiles simply...found her when the world was being earnest in ridiculous ways.

The afternoon light caught the curve of her mouth and softened her features until she looked as though she belonged to the park itself, another unassuming thing the day had coaxed into being. A loose strand of dark hair stirred against her cheek. Her eyes followed the dog with such solemn affection that one might have thought she was witnessing an actual campaign rather than eight inches of offended determination.

Leonardo had been watching the dog.

Then he looked at her. The change in his attention was slight, almost invisible, but it altered him. The amusement in his expression gentled.

His gaze lingered on the smile she'd never realized she'd offered the world. One corner of her mouth had lifted just before the other. Delight had softened the thoughtful line that usually lived between her brows. The afternoon light found her eyes first, turning them brighter than the rain deserved.

He was always most vulnerable in those moments when he believed no one was watching him look at her.

His eyes wandered over the loose curl brushing her cheek, the rain caught in her lashes, the tiny crease that appeared beside her nose whenever she was trying not to laugh.

There was no hunger in his expression. Not yet. Only that impossible tenderness Arthur had so mercilessly named, quiet and instinctive, as though witnessing her happiness had become a pleasure Leonardo no longer knew how to conceal.

“Like him?” he asked.

Cassandra looked back toward the indignant little creature. "He has the soul of a general," she pronounced with perfect solemnity.

Leonardo's mouth twitched. “The size of a pastry.”

She gasped with exaggerated offense and gave the center of his chest a light, indignant flick with two fingers. "How dare you."

"I stand by my assessment."

"Some of history's greatest military minds were remarkably compact."

His eyebrow rose."The dog is approximately eight inches tall."

"Napoleon wasn't much bigger."

Leonardo turned his head toward her.

Cassandra maintained her expression of serene historical authority for nearly two seconds.

Then one corner of her mouth betrayed her.

Leonardo regarded her for a long beat, one dark brow climbing higher and higher. "...You know for a fact that isn't true."

“I know.”

The corner of his mouth surrendered first. “And yet you said it.”

She folded her hands behind her back with saintly innocence. “It served the argument.”

“That is a terrible method of historical inquiry.”

“It is an excellent method of winning.” She smiled with all the dignity of someone who had absolutely no intention of arguing honestly.

The laugh escaped him before he could catch it, lively and entirely unguarded, spilling through the serene afternoon until it seemed to settle into the damp air around them.

Cassandra felt it far more dangerously than anyone should ever feel another person’s laughter.

The sound did not merely reach her. It moved through her.

It brushed beneath her ribs like the first note of a beloved song heard unexpectedly through an open window. Her pulse stumbled against it. Warmth unfurled low in her chest, soft and treacherous, and for one breath she became acutely aware of the distance between them, of the easy nearness of his shoulder, of the heat of his body beside hers despite the coolness gathering in the air.

Something inside her loosened. Something else leaned toward him. She wanted, absurdly and with embarrassing immediacy, to make him laugh again.

She had begun, lately, to recognize the different shapes of his laughter.

There was the deep one Arthur could coax from him whenever his ridiculousness finally overwhelmed Leonardo’s patience.

The quiet, private one that escaped when he stumbled across some elegant solution to an impossible problem.

The fondly exhausted one reserved for Sebastian’s long lectures disguised as practical advice.

The startled one, rare as sunlight breaking through winter clouds, that appeared only when Cassandra managed to say something he genuinely had not expected.

This laugh… This easy, effortless warmth… She was almost certain it belonged only to her.

The realization should have embarrassed her. Instead, it settled somewhere tender beneath her heart, small and glowing, a secret candle she knew better than to shelter and could not bring herself to extinguish.

She was trying very hard not to notice.

Trying… And failing with spectacular consistency.

They came to a bend in the path where an old stone fountain sat tucked between hedges, its basin dark with fallen leaves. The water spilled from the mouth of some weather-worn nymph, trickling down over moss and stone. Cassandra slowed, tugged gently by the sight.

She drifted toward the fountain as though answering some invitation. Almost without thinking, her fingertips found the ivy climbing its weathered stone before coming to rest on the cool rim of the basin.

Leonardo's stride slowed with hers. By the time she reached the weathered stone, he was already beside her, never having questioned the detour.

The fountain looked almost forgotten. Not neglected, exactly. Just old enough to have become part of the park’s breathing. Ivy climbed the back of it. Tiny white flowers grew between cracks in the stone. The nymph’s face had been softened by rain and years until she seemed less carved than remembered.

Her fingers came to rest against the cool stone rim of the basin. Soft moss yielded beneath her fingertips. "She looks lonely,” she murmured.

He didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, he found himself watching the expression on Cassandra's face.

She wore that same look whenever she stopped beside forgotten chapels, abandoned nests, cracked statues, or wildflowers growing through broken stone.

She had a habit of mourning beautiful things the world had overlooked.

Only then did he look back at the fountain before his gaze wandered, almost inevitably, back to Cassandra. He watched the tiny furrow that appeared between her brows whenever something touched her heart. She never seemed aware she did it.

“Does she?”

Her fingers traced an absent circle through the rainwater gathered along the stone. “Not sad. Just… like she’s been waiting so long she forgot what for.”

The words escaped before she could soften them. For one foolish heartbeat she wanted them back, to gather them from the air like startled birds before they found somewhere impossible to land.

She braced instinctively for the teasing she might have expected from another.

It never came.

Leonardo remained beside her, saying nothing at first.

The breeze wandered through the chestnut branches overhead, lifting the damp ends of his dark hair. He looked back at the old stone woman for a thoughtful moment, not dismissing Cassandra's words, not rushing to answer them, but considering them with the same patient attention he gave every beautiful problem.

“Maybe someone will remind her.”

The unwavering conviction in his voice drew her eyes to him.

His expression was unreadable in that way of his, but not empty--never empty. There was something behind his eyes that always reminded her of a room lit by a single lamp. Warmth. Shadow. Things left unsaid not because they were absent, but because they were too large to fit easily through the door.

Her breath caught for reasons that had very little to do with the fountain.

She searched his face for even the smallest hint of amusement.

There was none.

Only that impossible steadiness.

“Maybe,” she said softly.

A drop of rain struck the fountain.

Then another.

A dark circle bloomed on the stone path near her shoe.

A cool drop landed against her cheekbone. She looked up just as another caught in her lashes.

The first drops came gently, scattered and cool against her cheeks. The leaves above them trembled as though the trees had taken a breath. Across the lawn, a woman gathered her skirts and hurried toward the gate. The children shrieked in delighted protest as their nurse called them away. Pigeons lifted from the path in a soft gray burst of wings.

Leonardo followed her gaze to the sky. “Looks like our walk has opinions.”

She looked back at him, amusement brightening her eyes. “It was undecided earlier.”

His gaze lingered on the darkening sky only a heartbeat before returning, inevitably, to her. “Not anymore.”

At first the rain was lovely. A delicate silver stitching through the air. It jeweled the leaves, darkened the gravel, laid a sheen over the fountain until the old nymph looked alive with tears.

Cassandra laughed under her breath and lifted one hand into the rain.

Leonardo watched water gather in the graceful curve of her palm before slipping between her fingers. He wasn't entirely certain why something so ordinary had become so impossible to look away from.

Before long she became aware, not of the rain, but of him.

She didn't have to look.

She knew.

That was the trouble with Leonardo. His attention was never casual.

When other people looked, she merely noticed.

When Leonardo looked, she felt discovered.

It was the way his eyes never skimmed. They lingered. Not possessively. Curiously. As though every expression she wore deserved to be understood before it disappeared.

The rain had gathered in the loose curls near her temple. Tiny droplets clung to her lashes without falling. She was smiling at the sky as though it had told her a secret.

Leonardo wondered, with fascination, whether she had any idea what she looked like when she forgot someone might be watching.

The cool rain still kissed her skin, but somehow she became aware of heat blooming beneath it instead. Her pulse forgot its easy rhythm. Her quietly betrayed her.

Leonardo could look at her from across an entire room and somehow still feel unbearably close.

Unable to bear it any longer, she turned toward him, one brow lifting despite the warmth spreading through her cheeks. “What?”

He looked at her for another heartbeat, amusement deepening in his eyes.

“Nothing.”

One eyebrow arched. Her lips pursed thoughtfully, though amusement still shimmered in her eyes. “That is never true when you say it like that.”

His head tipped slightly, all innocent curiosity. “Like what?”

“Like you’ve just decided to keep a secret from me.”

The smile began almost imperceptibly, gathering at one corner of his mouth before the rest of it caught up. “Maybe I like having one.”

Cassandra narrowed her eyes at him. “Leonardo.”

“Cass.”

There was something different about the way he said her name sometimes. Softer.

As though it had reached his lips before caution had the chance to follow.

The rain began to fall harder. It struck the leaves in a sudden rush, a thousand small fingers tapping overhead. The gravel path darkened rapidly, and the scent of the earth rose up rich and green, like the park had opened some hidden door beneath its roots. Cold drops slid along Cassandra’s temples, into her hair, down the back of her neck.

She squealed, laughing as the icy trail disappeared beneath her collar.

Leonardo glanced once toward the thickening canopy overhead, rain already dripping from the ends of his hair. Rain had already gathered along the loose curl at her temple. One drop slipped free and traced the curve of her jaw before disappearing beneath her collar.

His gaze swept the park in a single practiced glance before settling on something behind her, a grin tugging briefly at one corner of his mouth. "All right. Come here."

Before she could answer, he caught her hand. His fingers closed around hers, large and warm despite the chill rain. She trusted the direction of his hand more quickly than she trusted her own feet.

The contact jolted through her, not because it was new, but because it was still him. Still Leonardo. Still the man who could take her hand as though it was the simplest thing in the world while her heart behaved like it had just been handed a lit match.

His thumb shifted instinctively against the back of her hand as he turned, anchoring her without ever seeming to think about it. “This way.”

Without waiting to see if she'd protest, he tugged gently, and they broke into an uneven run together, shoes slipping over rain-slick grass as laughter escaped both of them before either seemed to notice.

Cass gathered her skirt with her free hand and followed, laughing as the rain came down in earnest. The world dissolved into broad watercolor strokes, every edge softened until the park looked less like a place than one of Leonardo's unfinished studies left beneath the rain. Trees melted into dark green shapes. The fountain vanished behind a silver veil.

Her shoes sank into wet grass, and the hem of her dress clung to her ankles.

“Leonardo!” She half-laughed, half-gasped his name over the rush of rain, nearly slipping as another splash soaked the hem of her skirt.

He glanced back over one shoulder, rain dripping from his lashes, entirely too pleased with himself. “What?”

She pointed accusingly at him with her free hand, laughing too hard to sound genuinely offended. “You said this was a walk.”

“It is.” His expression remained one of outrageous innocence.

She splashed through a puddle in pursuit of him, laughing. “This is fleeing.”

The picture of innocent conviction, he replied, “Walking with urgency.”

She was laughing too hard to remember she was supposed to look graceful. Wet curls had escaped around her face. Her skirts were gathered in one hand. Rain scattered itself from every hurried step.

Leonardo wondered, not for the first time, whether joy itself had somehow learned to wear her face.

Rain traced the sharp line of his jaw before falling from his chin in glittering drops. Dark hair clung in loose curls to his forehead, and his coat, dampened by the downpour, drew closer to the broad line of his shoulders. He looked impossibly alive beneath the storm, smiling as though the weather itself had become an accomplice.

With one final tug, he pulled her through the shimmering curtain of rain and beneath the vast shelter of an ancient tree.

Its branches spread wide above them, ancient and sheltering, layered thick with leaves. The trunk was enormous, rough-barked and dark with rain, its roots rising from the earth like the backs of sleeping beasts. Beneath its canopy, the downpour softened to a whispering curtain around them. Water streamed from the outer leaves in bright trembling threads, enclosing them in a small green room.

She arrived in a whirl of damp skirts, her chest rising quickly as she tried, unsuccessfully, to catch her breath.

Her boot slid against one of the ancient roots hidden beneath the leaves. The world lurched.

Before surprise had even finished blooming across her face, Leonardo's hands were already there. Both hands steadied her at her waist, drawing her gently back against her own balance as though it were the most instinctive thing in the world.

“Careful.”

The word left him almost under his breath, meant more for her than the world.

The laughter dissolved somewhere between her lungs and her lips. His hands remained where they'd found her. Warm. Steady. Entirely unaware, for one suspended heartbeat, that there was no longer any need to hold her.

Rain murmured all around them, silver and constant. The air beneath the tree smelled of wet leaves, bark, and him. Warm tobacco. Old paper. Something faintly clean beneath it, like soap and rainwater on skin.

Slowly, almost reluctantly, her eyes climbed from the line of his shirt to its rain-darkened collar...then higher still.

Leonardo’s face had changed. The easy amusement that had danced there only moments ago had gone quiet.

His amber eyes seemed darker beneath the shade of the branches, their glow no less present, only deeper now. More intent. As though something inside him had become suddenly, dangerously honest.

His hands settled instinctively at the narrow curve of her waist, fitting there with the unsettling ease of something that felt unexpectedly familiar.

A drop of rain slid from his hair and traced the line of his temple.

Her own hand had found his forearm somewhere during the stumble. She became aware of it only now. Fuzzy wool beneath her fingertips. Firm muscle beneath that. She made no immediate effort to let go.

She gave the smallest, almost embarrassed smile, her fingers giving his sleeve a reassuring squeeze. “I’m fine.”

His answer came almost as faintly as the rain itself. “I know.”

Neither of them moved. Neither of them spoke.

Rain whispered around the edges of the tree. Somewhere beyond its branches, the park continued dissolving beneath the storm. Beneath the shelter, however...

...the world had become no larger than the few inches between them.

Cassandra became aware of every place she was damp. Her hair clinging to her cheeks. The sleeves of her dress cool against her arms. The wet ribbon of her hem brushing her ankles. Her skin prickled beneath it all, awakened by cold and closeness and the heat of his palms through the fabric at her waist.

His gaze wandered. Not far. Just enough to find her mouth.

A tiny drop of rain still rested against her lower lip, catching what little light filtered through the leaves.

It lingered there for the smallest fraction of a heartbeat. Long enough that she felt it. Long enough that the air between them seemed to tighten.

Then, almost visibly, he caught himself.

The damage had already been done.

She waited for her lungs to remember their purpose.

The muscle in his jaw flickered once. His fingers flexed almost imperceptibly against her waist, as though resisting some instinct known only to him.

“Hai freddo?” he murmered.

She knew enough Italian now to understand him.

Are you cold?

Yes, she almost said.

No, she almost said.

Both would have been lies.

She searched his eyes as though they might contain the answer before finally whispering, “I don’t know.”

Something moved across his face. Tenderness, perhaps. Or ache. With Leonardo, tenderness often arrived carrying old sorrow in its pockets.

His hand left her waist almost reluctantly.

Languidly enough that she became aware of every inch it traveled.

His fingertips found the damp curl clinging to her cheek. The same rain-darkened curl had escaped three separate times since the storm began.

He paused there. Just for a heartbeat. As though silently asking permission neither of them knew how to give.

Then, with unbearable gentleness, he swept the strand behind her ear. The heat of his touch seemed startling after the chill of the storm.

Cass’s eyes fluttered before she could stop them.

The touch was painfully gentle. He smoothed the darkened strands away from her skin, tucking them behind her ear with such care that it made something inside her loosen and tremble. His thumb grazed the curve of her cheek, lingering there as if the contact had become a question neither of them knew how to answer.

Something softened in his eyes. The kind of expression that carried equal measures of tenderness and old grief. “You always do that.”

Her lashes lifted gently. “Do what?” She searched his face with open confusion.

His thumb brushed another damp strand away from her temple. “Try to decide what you’re allowed to feel before you feel it.”

The words slipped between them, low and sure. The rain seemed to hush.

She looked at him as though he'd just spoken aloud something she'd never once managed to tell another soul.

Most people saw her enthusiasm before they saw her hesitation. Her imagination before her uncertainty. Her laughter before the careful calculations constantly unfolding beneath it.

Very few people ever noticed how often she measured herself before speaking. How many feelings she silently negotiated with before allowing herself to have them.

Leonardo had noticed.

She hadn't told him.

Somehow...

...he had simply seen her.

Not the version she offered the world.

Her.

She looked down for the briefest moment before finding his eyes again. “I don’t always know what I’m allowed to feel,” she admitted.

The confession was barely louder than the rain.

His thumb traced the smallest arc along her cheekbone, so light she almost wondered whether she'd imagined it. “Then feel it first.” His gaze never wavered. “We’ll sort out the rest after.”

Something inside her chest gave way with inevitability.

It wasn't pain exactly.

More like a tightly closed room filling suddenly with light.

More light than she'd ever imagined letting in.

Beautiful enough to ache.

The corner of her mouth trembled upward before emotion stole it away again. “You make that sound simple.”

“It isn’t.” One corner of his mouth lifted, tender rather than amused.

“No.”

His eyes wandered over her face.

The tiny line still lingering between her brows. The faint flush rain had left across her cheeks. The way uncertainty still trembled at the corners of her smile even while hope kept trying to replace it.

He looked at her the way other people read books… Certain there was always another beautiful thing waiting on the next page.

“But you don’t have to do it alone.”

Her fingers tightened instinctively against the sleeve she'd never stopped holding. Her eyes burned suddenly, fiercely.

For as long as she could remember, love had always felt easier to imagine than to receive.

She could write it. Sing it. Dream it into empty rooms until the walls glowed with it.

But standing here… Having someone look at her as though her feelings were neither too much nor too inconvenient… As though they were something to cherish rather than manage...

That terrified her.

More than loneliness ever had.

Because loneliness was familiar.

This was not.

This was Leonardo.

Rain shimmered in the loose strands of dark hair against his forehead. One hand still rested warmly at her waist. The other remained lightly cupping her cheek, as though somewhere between catching her and comforting her, he'd forgotten there was any place else it ought to be. He looked at her with such quiet, unwavering attention that it almost undid her.

As though every feeling she'd spent a lifetime apologizing for was simply another beautiful thing to understand.

Her eyes fell to the hand still cradling her face, as though only now had her heart caught up enough for the rest of her to notice it.

Almost shyly, she lifted her own. Her fingertips brushed the back of his hand first, feather-light, testing the reality of him. Only then did her palm settle over his, holding it there as though she couldn't bear for the warmth to disappear.

It was the smallest of gestures.

It undid him. She felt it before she heard it.

His next breath caught somewhere deep in his chest, the rise and fall of it changing beneath the hand still resting at her waist. Something shifted behind his eyes, as though a carefully fastened door had come unlatched.

“Cass.” Her name sounded different now. Rougher. Almost a warning. Almost a plea.

Slowly, almost afraid of what she might find, her eyes climbed to his again.

Their eyes held.

She smiled, small and trembling. "I'm feeling it first," she whispered, the words sounding less like an answer than a promise she was making to herself.

For a moment, he did not move.

Neither did the world.

The rain fell around them in a shining circle. The old tree held them beneath its dark green shelter, leaves shivering, bark breathing dampness into the air. Somewhere beyond the curtain of water, Paris went on existing with its carriages and cafés and lamplight, but beneath the tree there was only this.

Leonardo’s hand beneath hers. His gaze on her mouth. Her heartbeat, wild and luminous.

Then he bent his head.

Slowly.

So slowly she had time to feel the space vanish.

His mouth touched hers with a gentleness that made something inside her softly surrender.

It was not a claiming. Not at first. It was a question pressed in earnestness, a kiss soft enough to tremble. His lips brushed hers once, then again, careful and reverent, as though he had found something fragile in the rain and feared even wanting it too much might break it.

Cass made a small sound without meaning to. It slipped out of her like light from behind a door.

His lips lingered against hers without moving, as though the sound she'd made had stolen the next heartbeat from him.

Whatever careful restraint had held him until now dissolved with a slow, almost audible inevitability.

His arm slid around her waist, drawing her closer until the damp fabric of her dress met the heat of his body. His other hand curved along the side of her face, fingers threading into her rain-wet hair. The kiss deepened, slow and warm and devastating, no longer a question but an answer he had been holding back for too long.

Her fingers gathered helplessly in the damp fabric of his coat, wrinkling the wool beneath her grip as though it were the only steady thing left in the world.

The rain blurred everything. Sound became water and leaves and breath. His mouth moved over hers with aching patience, then with a hunger that shivered through his restraint. He kissed her as if he had once sworn never to need anything again and she had become the beautiful ruin of that vow. As if every unfinished melody in her chest had found its harmony in him. As if the rain had washed the centuries from his hands and left only the man beneath, glowing and wanting and heartbreakingly alive.

His lips were soft, rain-cool at first, then heated by the slow pressure of the kiss. She tasted rainwater and something darker, sweeter, him. Her senses filled with him until she could not tell where the storm ended and Leonardo began: the scent of tobacco and wet wool, the roughness of his coat beneath her fingers, the firm shelter of his arm at her back, the brush of his breath against her cheek when he angled closer.

Her hand slipped from his coat to the curve of his shoulder, drawing him nearer with all the certainty she could not find in words. She answered his kiss with another of her own. Not perfectly, not gracefully. Filled with too much feeling, probably. With all the longing she had spent years folding into songs, all the tenderness she had hidden in laughter, all the aching, secret hope that someone might one day touch her as if she were not a burden of brightness but a dawn worth waiting for.

His fingers flexed against the small of her back, drawing her infinitesimally closer as a sound escaped him, low and rough enough that she felt it more than heard it.

Heat flooded through her so suddenly her knees threatened to forget their purpose.

She rose onto her toes, pressing nearer, and he answered by guiding her back one careful step until the broad trunk met her shoulders. The bark was cool through the damp fabric of her dress, solid and ancient behind her. Leonardo paused just long enough to be certain she hadn't lost her footing before following her into the space he'd created between them. His hand slid from her waist to the small of her back, not trapping her there, only holding her close enough that the rain could no longer find the space between them.

The kiss softened.

Then deepened again.

They learned each other in the spaces between thunder.

His mouth lingered at the corner of hers, then returned, warm and slow. One hand remained along her jaw, thumb resting lightly beneath her cheekbone. Each meeting of their mouths shifted her softly against his palm until it seemed he could feel every trembling answer before she gave it.

Every time he kissed her, her breathing changed a heartbeat before her hands did. He began to recognize the tiny pattern without meaning to, the soft catch of her breath followed, almost inevitably, by her fingers drawing him just a little nearer.

Her fingers slid from his coat to his shirt, feeling the heartbeat beneath, strong and startlingly human. He shuddered faintly when she touched him there, and the knowledge that she could affect him, that Leonardo da Vinci, impossible man, eternal wanderer, could tremble beneath her hand, sent passion through her so suddenly it nearly brought tears to her eyes.

He broke the kiss first, but only barely. His forehead rested against hers. Their breath mingled in the cool damp air.

Cass kept her eyes closed. She was afraid if she opened them, the whole park would vanish and she would wake in her room with rain tapping at the window and nothing but a dream burning on her lips.

His forehead rested against hers for another lingering heartbeat. Then, almost hesitantly, he turned his face.

His lips came to rest against the curve where her neck met her shoulder, lingering there, the heat of his mouth against her skin. As though, for one heartbeat, simply being close to her was enough.

She felt his breath first, warm against rain-cooled skin, and instinctively her head tipped back, offering him the small space. He drew one slow breath there, as though committing the moment to memory.

Mia stella,” he whispered, and there was wonder in it now. Wonder, and fear, and something so tender it hurt to hear. He lifted his head until his golden, butterscotch eyes found hers again. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?”

Her lashes lifted, as though she feared the movement alone might break whatever fragile thing had settled between them.

He was close enough that she could count the tiny beads of rain still clinging to his lashes. The faint line between his brows had yet to disappear. His lips, still parted from the kiss, were flushed with warmth. Vulnerability lingered openly across his face, unhidden for perhaps the first time since she'd met him.

She had imagined moments like this before. Hundreds of them.

None had prepared her for this.

For Leonardo looking at her as though she had rearranged the world beneath his feet.

“No,” she answered honestly.

Something between a laugh and a disbelieving breath escaped him. “No. I suppose you don’t.”

With the same unbearable care he'd shown her, she lifted her hand. Her fingertips traced the line of his jaw before settling lightly against his cheek.

His lashes lowered slowly beneath her touch. His next breath left him as his shoulders softened. And before he seemed to realize what he was doing, he leaned ever so slightly into her palm, enough that she felt the quiet weight of him there.

It was such a small surrender. Somehow, it felt larger than the kiss.

Cass’s throat tightened.

Because he'd trusted her with something precious.

“Leonardo.”

His lashes lifted. Those warm butterscotch eyes found hers again, still darkened by the rain and by everything that had passed between them. The wonder had not left them. If anything, it had deepened into something quieter. More vulnerable. As though he no longer knew how to look at her without telling the truth.

"You always act like you're the one who sees everything..." The smallest smile trembled at the corners of her mouth, fragile beneath the emotion still filling her chest. “But you don’t see this.”

“What?”

She swallowed, rain and courage on her tongue.

“What you do to me.”

The words trembled, but they did not fall apart.

His eyes searched her face, watching the way courage and uncertainty seemed to exist there at the same time, each giving way to the other with every heartbeat.

There were a thousand things in his expression, all moving beneath the surface like light under dark water. Wonder folded into disbelief. Desire softened by reverence. A grief so old it had worn itself smooth. Hope, cautious and frightened, lifting its head from some hidden corner of him that had slept for centuries.

The hard drumming overhead eased into a gentler whisper, the storm seeming to draw a quieter breath around them.

Cass kept her hand on his cheek, afraid that if she stopped touching him, he would retreat behind one of his smiles.

So she spoke before he could.

“You make me feel…” She exhaled, searching for the words. Words usually came easily to her. Too easily. They filled pages, songs, rooms. But this felt too living to be held neatly. “Like I’m not too much.”

He watched the words leave her as though they weighed something physical, seeing the way her shoulders relaxed by the smallest degree once they were finally spoken. “Cass…”

“No, let me say it.” Her thumb brushed the rain from his cheek, though more fell immediately. “Please.”

Whatever answer had been waiting on his lips disappeared. His attention settled on her with such complete stillness that she had the strange impression even the rain no longer dared interrupt.

“You make me feel like the parts of me I’ve always tried to soften or hide or explain away are…not flaws to survive around.” Her voice had become little more than breath. “Like maybe they’re where the light gets in. Or out. I don’t know. Both.”

His eyes never wavered. They carried the steadiness of deep water, and for one impossible moment she felt she could have rested the whole weight of her heart there.

“Both,” he said roughly.

A laugh shook out of her. “You would say that.”

“Because it’s true.” The corner of his mouth lifted with heartbreaking certainty.

She laughed again, smaller this time, looking down for just a heartbeat before finding him again. “You don’t know that.”

She always searched his face before saying something that mattered, as though checking whether it was safe to place another piece of herself in his hands.

“I know you.”

He said it without drama. Without grand performance. Just four words beneath a rain-heavy tree, spoken as though they were as undeniable as the storm. I know you.

Whatever words she'd thought she still possessed abandoned her.

Cass had been admired before, perhaps. Desired in pieces. Appreciated when she was charming, useful, entertaining, easy to love from a distance. But known?

Known was different.

Known meant someone had noticed the trembling beneath her brightness. The ache beneath her imagination. The way she made beauty not because life was easy, but because something in her refused to let sorrow have the final word.

He had noticed the trembling beneath her brightness long before she'd admitted it existed.

And instead of stepping back...

...he had stepped closer.

Cass blinked, but the tears came anyway.

Concern softened every remaining trace of wonder from his face.

“Mia stella,” he murmured, brushing his thumb beneath one eye. “What is it?”

She laughed once through the tears, embarrassed by them already, and ducked her head. “Nothing.”

One corner of his mouth lifted with infinite gentleness.

“That is never true when you say it like that.”

A laugh broke through the tears. “I’m happy,” she whispered. She looked up at him through tears, smiling despite them. “That’s all. I think my body doesn’t know what to do with that much of it.”

His eyes closed for the briefest heartbeat, as though the words had reached somewhere unexpectedly tender.

His hand slipped from her cheek.

Before she could miss the warmth of it, his arms were around her instead--drawing her in--gathering her gently against him.

There was no urgency in the embrace. No desperation.

Only the unwavering resolve of someone who had finally stopped resisting where his heart wished to rest.

She went willingly, almost instinctively, resting her cheek against the steady rise of his chest as though some part of her had known exactly where it belonged long before she did.

For a moment, she simply stood there and listened.

The steady beat beneath his ribs. The rain spilling from the leaves. The distant sigh of thunder moving farther away.

He held her as though he had all the time in the world and had finally found a reason to spend it carefully.

Her forehead settled more fully against his chest, her lashes lowering as though the world beyond the circle of his arms had simply ceased to matter. His coat smelled of rain, smoke, old books, and Leonardo.

She drew a slow breath.

Rain. Smoke. Old books.

And underneath it all, unmistakably, Leonardo.

The frantic flutter beneath her ribs eased by degrees, not disappearing, only finding a gentler rhythm against the steady beat of his heart.

She was still too full, still trembling, still aware of the heat of his kiss lingering on her mouth. Every time she breathed, she could almost convince herself she could still feel him there.

His eyes lingered on the rain-dark curls resting against his coat, on the tiny crease still left between her brows even in happiness, on the impossible tenderness of having her trust him enough to simply stand there.

She felt the faintest warmth against the crown of her head. So light she almost mistook it for the lingering breath of the rain.

Then it came again. Deliberate this time.

His lips rested there for the smallest heartbeat before lifting once more, as though the feeling inside him had become too full to remain unspoken any longer.

A quiet laugh escaped against the wool of his coat, her smile warming the fabric between them. “I felt that.”

“Meant you to.” His answer vibrated through his chest beneath her cheek.

“Bold of you.”

She felt the curve of his smile against her hair.

“You kissed me back. I’ve become reckless.”

She leaned back just enough to find his face again. “That’s all it took?”

His eyes found her mouth again before returning to hers. “No.”

The word was low.

Warmth unfurled through her. Her next breath came a little less steadily than the last.

Something in his expression softened with quiet recognition, as though he'd watched the feeling bloom across her face. His expression shifted, darkened at the edges, but there was still tenderness there. Always tenderness. It made the wanting more dangerous somehow, because it was not empty. It had roots.

He lifted a hand and traced the line of her jaw with the backs of his fingers. “I’ve been reckless for a while.”

“Have you?”

His eyes lingered on the tiny smile she'd been trying unsuccessfully to suppress. Only then did they drift toward the rain beyond the leaves, as though the confession required a little distance to survive being spoken.

“Longer than I meant to be.”

The words sank into her.

She watched him, trying to understand the shape of what he was giving her.

Leonardo rarely handed anyone the whole truth.

He offered sketches. Half-finished thoughts. Ideas still drying beneath careful hands.

Never because he wished to deceive. Simply because some things were too precious to uncover before they were ready.

This time… There had been no sketch.

He had quietly placed something whole into her hands.

Almost without realizing she'd moved, her fingertips traced a slow path over the rain-damp linen above his heart. “Were you afraid?” she whispered.

His gaze returned to hers at last. There was nowhere left to hide. “Terrified.”

She searched his face as though she genuinely couldn't imagine it. “Of me?”

His thumb brushed once against her back. “Of wanting you.”

She had spent so long wondering whether she was brave enough to love him.

It had never crossed her mind that courage might have been something he'd been searching for too.

She had imagined loving him would feel like falling.

She had not expected it to feel so much like being met.

Rain pattered overhead. A drop slid from one of the leaves and landed on Cass’s wrist, cold as a bead of glass.

Leonardo looked back at her. There was no teasing now. No practiced ease. Only him, stripped of his carelessness by rain and nearness and whatever had just broken open between them.

“I’ve wanted many things,” he said in a low voice. “Curiosity does that to a man. Beauty. Knowledge. A question no one else has answered. A door no one else has opened.” His fingers covered hers against his chest. “But this is different.”

Her lips parted, but nothing came. She searched his face for a moment longer before the smallest word escaped her. “How?”

His eyes searched hers with the quiet patience of someone willing to wait as long as necessary to be understood.

“Because I don’t want to solve you.”

Her vision shimmered suddenly, though whether from tears or rain she couldn't have said.

“I don’t want to understand you so I can put you away in some tidy corner of my mind.” His voice roughened. “I want to keep discovering you. I want to watch the way you change when light comes through a window. I want to hear the songs you hum when you forget I’m nearby. I want to know what makes you laugh when you’re tired, what makes you quiet when you’re hurt, what colors the world becomes when you’re happy.”

His hand rose almost hesitantly, as though he were following an instinct he'd only just discovered. The pad of his thumb paused beneath her lower lip before brushing lightly across it, feather-soft, the gesture carrying more wonder than desire.

His breath caught.

So did hers.

“And God help me, mia stella, I want to be the reason you look the way you did at that fountain.”

The tears came before she could negotiate with them. One escaped down her cheek. Then another followed, as though the first had shown it the way.

His thumb followed the path of the first tear before it reached her jaw, brushing it away with the same impossible care he'd shown every part of her that afternoon.

Even her tears.

As if every small proof of her feeling was something precious.

She laughed helplessly through the tears, shaking her head as though laughter was the only defense she had left. “You can’t say things like that and expect me to remain normal.”

Affection reached his eyes first. The smile followed a heartbeat later. “I never once expected you to remain normal.”

She gave the center of his waistcoat the lightest, thoroughly ineffective pat. “Rude.”

One eyebrow lifted in innocent self-defense. “Honest.”

“You’re impossible.”

“Frequently.”

“And beautiful.”

The words settled over him with startling quiet. The easy rhythm of his breathing faltered.

His eyes searched hers as though trying to decide whether she'd truly meant them.

Whatever answer he found there left him unexpectedly still.

Cassandra suspected the reaction was not because he had never been called beautiful. She was certain he had. He looked like the sort of man the universe had made during a dangerously indulgent hour. But perhaps he was unused to hearing it like this, not as admiration for the arrangement of his face, but as recognition of something deeper.

His soul, maybe.

Worn thin in places. Luminous anyway.

Cass lifted her chin. “You are,” she said, softer now. “Beautiful. Not just… this.” Her hand hovered vaguely near him rather than pointing at his features, as though she genuinely didn't mean his face at all. “Though obviously this is unreasonable.”

A quiet laugh escaped him, affection returning to his face. “Obviously.”

“But you. The way your mind moves. The way you notice things.”

Her eyes had always been drawn to the overlooked corners of the world. He wondered, with quiet amazement, when she'd begun looking at him the same way.

“The way you pretend not to care when you care so much it’s practically a public safety concern,” she finished.

He huffed a laugh. “I’m beginning to regret teaching you observation.”

She tipped her head with exaggerated dignity. “You didn’t teach me. I was already made this way.”

He conceded with an amused dip of his head. “True.”

The laughter faded gently from her face, leaving only quiet honesty behind.Her fingertips drifted absently along the front of his coat as she searched for words. “You make the world feel bigger.” She met his eyes again. “But also… safer.” Her smile turned almost disbelieving. “Which seems impossible.”

It struck her, all at once, that what had always drawn her to Leonardo had never truly been his face.

It was this.

The impossible gentleness with which he carried another person's heart.

Cass felt suddenly shy, but she refused to look away. She had spent too much of her life swallowing truths until they became ghosts. Not this one. Not beneath this tree, with rain sealing them away from the rest of the world.

She brushed another rain-darkened strand from his forehead, smiling through the last of her tears. “So yes,” she whispered. Her fingertips lingered at the corner of his mouth for just a heartbeat, tracing the ghost of the smile she'd come to love before resting lightly against his cheek. “Whatever I do to you, you do it to me too.”

Somewhere beyond the curtain of rain, Paris went on being Paris.

Beneath the tree...

...the universe had narrowed to two beating hearts and the impossible relief of finally being understood.

Something in his expression softened beyond words.

His hand found her cheek once more, his thumb resting there.

For one lingering heartbeat, he simply looked at her. No searching now. No wondering. Only the quiet astonishment of finding his own feelings reflected back at him.

He leaned toward her.

Before his lips could find hers, she rose to meet them.

The tiny movement stole the breath from him. The last fragile thread of restraint disappeared.

There was no question in the kiss this time. No careful pause waiting to see whether she might pull away.

Only the unmistakable certainty of a man who had finally realized she was reaching for him just as surely as he was reaching for her.

His hands framed her face as he kissed her with a tenderness so fierce it left no room for doubt. His mouth moved leisurely over hers, savoring, cherishing. Every meeting of their lips lasted a heartbeat longer than the last, as though he no longer feared wanting too much.

Cass melted into him, her hands sliding up his chest and into the rain-softened hair at the nape of his neck, drawing him nearer with a easy confidence that belonged to neither courage nor boldness.

He made a low sound against her mouth.

She felt it vibrate between them, and something bright unfurled inside her chest. Every time his breath caught against her mouth, something inside her answered. Her fingers threaded more fully into his hair. His next kiss answered hers with a quiet hunger that had not been there before, and she felt him shiver beneath her fingertips.

His hands slipped from her face to her waist, then around her, gathering her closer. There was no longer any reason to keep even an inch of distance between them.

The kiss deepened with all the quiet longing they'd spent weeks pretending belonged somewhere else. His lips parted hers gently. She welcomed him without hesitation.

Cass’s breath trembled. His mouth lingered against hers with a passion that stole every lingering uncertainty she'd carried beneath the tree.

"Cassandra..." Her name breathed from his lips between kisses, so faintly it almost disappeared into the rain.

She answered by slipping one hand beneath the open collar of his shirt, her fingertips brushing the warm skin above the steady rhythm of his heart.

His breath caught sharply. She answered by kissing him a little deeper, smiling against his mouth when she felt his heartbeat stumble beneath her hand.

Everything else disappeared. All that remained was this.

The heat of his mouth against hers. The steady strength of his arms around her. The faint scrape of his jaw against her cheek when he tilted his head. The quiet rhythm of his heart beneath her fingertips. The sweetness of air stolen and given back between kisses. The quiet sound he made whenever she kissed him back.

For the first time that afternoon, neither of them seemed to be holding anything back.

She realized, somewhere between one heartbeat and the next, that wanting someone and feeling safe with them were never meant to be separate things.

She drew back only far enough to search for air, her breaths arriving in small, uneven pieces.

Leonardo's chest rose no more steadily than hers. His lips remained slightly parted. The composure he'd worn so faithfully all afternoon had become little more than a memory.

Delight flickered through her eyes and she bit her lip to hold back her grin.

He didn't move away immediately. Instead, his lips drifted from hers to her temple, then rested for the briefest moment in her rain-damp hair, as though he couldn't quite stop touching her now that he'd finally begun.

“You are going to be the death of me.” His voice was rough enough to sound borrowed.

Amusement sparkled through the lingering tears still caught in her lashes. “I thought you were immortal.”

“I was.”

She giggled, and he kissed the laugh from the corner of her mouth.

It was barely a kiss at all. Just the briefest brush against the corner of her smile.

Somehow...

...it undid her more completely than all the others.

The rain had begun to soften. The hard drumming faded into a gentler patter, and beyond the curtain of leaves the park emerged slowly from blur into shape. The grass shone emerald-dark. The gravel path gleamed pale and wet. The old fountain was visible again in the distance, water spilling over water, the stone nymph’s face lifted toward the clearing sky.

Her eyes wandered past his shoulder until they found the old fountain waiting where the rain had left it.

His eyes traced the quiet path of hers until they settled on the old stone nymph.

Her smile softened into something almost wistful. “She looks less lonely now.”

His arm remained around her waist. “Does she?”

“Yes.” She let herself settle against him, her cheek brushing his shoulder with the easy trust of someone who had forgotten there was any reason to stand apart. “Maybe someone reminded her.”

He answered with no words at all. Only the quiet tightening of the arm still resting around her waist.

A break opened in the clouds then, narrow and sudden. Late afternoon light poured through, gold washed thin by rain. It caught in the hanging drops along the tree branches until every leaf glittered. The whole park seemed strung with tiny lamps.

Her eyes widened with quiet delight as the first shaft of sunlight slipped through the thinning clouds. Gold caught in every rain-soaked leaf until the whole tree seemed strung with tiny stars.

She smiled the way she always did when beauty surprised her...

As though she'd been expecting kindness from the world all along.

Leonardo never looked toward the break in the clouds. He watched the sunlight find her instead.

It settled first in the loose curls around her face, then caught the tiny drops still resting against her lashes until she seemed to glow from within.

The sky had made something beautiful. It had simply chosen the wrong place to look.

Wonder gave way to awareness. She turned. He was looking at her again.

“What?” she asked, though her voice carried a smile.

He shook his head slightly. “Nothing.”

“Leonardo.”

One corner of his mouth surrendered first. His eyes followed a heartbeat later, bright with the quiet satisfaction of a man thoroughly pleased with himself.

His eyes lingered on the tiny drop of rain still clinging to one of her lashes. She hadn't noticed it. He wasn't entirely certain why that delighted him.

“I’m observing the weather.”

Cass laughed, and the sound rose beneath the old tree, bright as rainlight.

He smiled then, truly smiled, the expression moving through his whole face with a tender affection that made him look younger. Or not younger, exactly. More present. More alive. As if some window inside him had opened and the long-stale air of centuries had finally begun to move.

As the last of her laughter faded, she found herself reaching for him again without thinking. Her fingertips brushed the rain-darkened strands at his temple before tracing the familiar line of his cheek. Her palm settled there as though it had always known the shape of his face. Her thumb wandered lightly beneath his cheekbone, memorizing him with quiet wonder.

Leonardo's eyes drifted closed for the briefest heartbeat. The smallest smile touched his mouth. Almost imperceptibly, he leaned into the warmth of her hand. Not enough to ask. Just enough to answer.

Something inside her softened all over again. Her hand drifted from his cheek, lingering just long enough for her fingertips to brush the line of his jaw before she stepped into him once more.

Her arms slipped around his waist with easy familiarity, as though her heart had already decided this was where it intended to return.

This time there was no uncertainty left to negotiate. No wondering whether she belonged there. No fear that loving him might somehow ask too much of the world.

She simply rested against him with the peace of someone who had finally stopped searching for home because she'd realized she was already standing in it.

For a long while, neither of them moved. The rain softened overhead until it was little more than a quiet conversation among the leaves.

Cass rested against him, listening to the steady rhythm beneath his ribs while Leonardo continued rescuing the same impossible curl from her face, though each time it escaped again a few moments later.

He found he didn't mind.

Neither seemed eager to be the first to acknowledge that the world still existed beyond the shelter of the old tree.

Eventually, Cass let out the smallest laugh. "I think everything feels different."

His eyes lingered on her with quiet concentration, as though comparing the woman before him to the one who'd first stepped into the rain that afternoon.

"It is."

She searched his face. He looked the way he did after making some extraordinary discovery, astonished not that it existed, but that it had somehow been waiting for him all along.

"Are you frightened?"

A rueful smile touched one corner of his mouth. "A little."

"So am I." She tucked herself against his chest again, hugging him just a little tighter as though saying it aloud had only made the need to be close greater.

He found her hand where it rested against him and wove his fingers through hers. He looked down at them for a heartbeat before speaking. "I suspect the only thing more frightening than kissing you..." His eyes lifted to hers again. "...would have been spending the rest of my life wondering what it might have been like."

She felt his confession somewhere impossibly deep, where hope and grief had always seemed to live side by side.

It was such an ordinary sentence.

Somehow...it sounded suspiciously like forever.

She loved him so suddenly and so completely that speaking another word felt almost impossible.

Which, naturally, was why she reached for humor instead.

Cass leaned her forehead briefly against his shoulder. "We have another problem."

His head tipped slightly, the smallest smile already beginning at one corner of his mouth. "Oh?"

"We have to go back."

Amusement gathered lazily at the corners of his eyes. "Eventually."

Cass groaned with theatrical despair. "Arthur is going to be unbearable."

Leonardo sighed toward the dripping branches overhead. "He'll be insufferably pleased with himself."

"Which is somehow worse." She buried her face in his shoulder for one dramatic moment. "And…he'll know."

"He knew before we did. And Sebastian..." Leonardo's expression became beautifully resigned. "...already has towels waiting."

Cass laughed so hard she had to hide her face against his chest. "I can't believe this."

"I can."

She looked down then, noticing their hands still loosely intertwined between them. A smile stole across her face. "I don't think I'm ever going to stop staring at this."

Leonardo's gaze followed hers to their joined hands. A smile, quiet enough to be almost private, touched his mouth.

Without releasing her, he lifted their hands between them. His thumb brushed once across her knuckles before he turned her hand over in his own with extraordinary care, as though every small movement deserved its own unhurried attention.

He looked into her eyes first. Only then did he lower his head.

His lips found her knuckles with the same reverence he'd shown every part of her that afternoon. One lingering kiss.

Then another, a little farther along her hand.

He remained there for the smallest heartbeat after each one, as though reluctant to leave even after the kiss itself had ended.

A tiny shiver chased its way through her before she could stop it, leaving her smiling despite herself. How could a kiss to her hand leave her heart behaving like this?

His eyes lifted to hers with the soft, unguarded contentment of a man who had stopped pretending he wasn't completely enchanted. "Then I'll have to keep giving you new things to marvel at."

He said it as though it were no grand promise at all. Merely the natural shape of the future. Somehow...

...that made it even more convincing.

Cass smiled so brightly it almost hurt. "There is one thing I want from you."

"Hm?" One dark brow lifted, inviting whatever impossible request she was about to make.

Her smile faded into something quieter. She held his gaze with an earnestness that made his own expression soften in answer. "From now on..."

The smallest nod invited her to continue.

"...tell me one honest thing whenever I ask."

The corners of his mouth lifted. "Only one?"

She laughed. "We should start with achievable goals."

"I believe I can manage one."

"Good." She squeezed his hand. "I'm going to ask often."

"I rather hoped you would."

By the time they finally stepped from beneath the tree, the rain had almost stopped. Not all at once. It thinned into a silver whisper, then a hush, then a few last drops falling from leaf to leaf. The park seemed to exhale.

Somewhere nearby, a bird tested a single note before another answered it.

For a fleeting moment, it seemed the rain had washed more than the city clean.

Or perhaps...it was only her.

The grass glimmered emerald-dark beneath the clearing sky. Gravel paths gleamed pale with rain. Windows beyond the park caught the late afternoon sun until they looked as though someone had scattered liquid gold across the city. The air tasted clean, cool, faintly mineral, like rain had rinsed the city down to its bones.

Leonardo never let go of her hand.

They walked leisurely back toward the path.

Halfway there, Cass glanced back. The great old tree still stood where it always had, branches dripping delicately, roots sunk deep into the earth that had sheltered countless storms before theirs.

Leonardo noticed. “Planning to thank it?”

“I might.”

“I won’t stop you.”

"I feel like it deserves recognition."

"It performed admirably."

"It sheltered us in our hour of need."

"Our hour of kissing."

She looked at him in mock outrage. "Leonardo."

"What?" His expression remained perfectly innocent. "I'm being historically accurate."

Heat rushed back into her cheeks. He looked entirely too pleased with himself.

“You are terrible,” she said.

"I've been called worse."

"By Arthur?"

"Frequently."

They wandered back toward the fountain.

The old nymph gleamed with rainwater, her softened face turned toward the break in the clouds. A single drop clung to her stone chin before falling into the basin below. Ivy shivered daintily in the damp breeze.

Cass slowed.

After a thoughtful silence, she smiled.

"Evangeline."

Leonardo looked from her to the fountain. "The nymph?"

"She needed a name."

He considered this with exaggerated seriousness. “Why Evangeline?”

“I don’t know.” Cass tilted her head. "It feels like the sort of name that has waited a very long time..." She looked toward the old stone face. "...and still believes in love."

Leonardo’s eyes softened in a way that made her wish, suddenly and fiercely, that she could protect every softhearted thing in him.

"Evangeline," he repeated, tasting the name as though it were a new color. The name sounded unexpectedly beautiful in his voice.

Together they continued toward the park gates.

The mansion waited beyond them, full of warm lamps and immortal men who would almost certainly become unbearable before supper.

Oddly...Cass found she wasn't afraid. Not because everything had been solved. Nothing so miraculous. Only because something had begun.

A beginning, she realized, was no small thing.

Leonardo’s hand held hers as they passed beneath the wet trees, and every so often his thumb brushed lightly over her skin, as though reassuring himself she was still there.

She was.

She was there. Damp curls. Rain on her sleeves. A heart so impossibly full she hardly knew how to carry it. Beside a man who had lived too long, loved too carefully… and still trembled when she touched his cheek.

At the gates, Leonardo slowed.

"What?" she asked, looking up at him.

He glanced toward the street beyond before looking back at her. "One more honest thing?"

Her heart leapt. "Yes."

He watched the anticipation arrive. Her eyes brightened first.Then the corners of her mouth. Her smile always seemed to begin before she realized she was smiling.

“I wanted to kiss you before the rain.”

Cass’s lips parted. A smile bloomed through her, slow and helpless. “You did?”

He nodded.

“At the fountain?”

“Before that.”

“On the path?”

“Before that.”

Her smile widened. “When?”

He leaned close enough that his answer brushed warmly against the shell of her ear.

"When you looked at that ridiculous little dog..." His smile widened. "...and decided he was a general."

Laughter burst from her before she could stop it. The sound scattered two pigeons from the gate.

His head tipped back just enough for the laughter to escape freely.

For one bright moment, they stood beneath the clearing sky laughing together as though the whole city had become impossibly young again.

When the laughter finally faded, Cass lifted her hands to his face. Her palms settled against his cheeks with quiet familiarity now, her thumbs brushing lightly through the last lingering drops of rain.

"Leonardo?"

"Hm?"

"One honest thing."

His eyes softened. “Tell me.”

She rose onto her toes and kissed him.

It lasted only a heartbeat. Nothing like the kisses beneath the tree.

This one carried laughter instead of trembling. Sunlight instead of storm.

When she drew back, wonder had returned to his face all over again.

"I wanted you to," she whispered.

Leonardo looked at her as though every feeling the storm had briefly quieted had returned all at once.

Then the quietest smile she'd ever seen unfolded across his face.

Not the lazy one.