Chapter6

Eleanor's POV

The silence lasted two full seconds.

His expression moved through something—recognition, then a very controlled version of alarm—before settling into a careful blankness. He didn't look at Alexander. He looked at his assistant first, the way men like him always do when they need someone else to absorb the shock. The assistant had already taken half a step back.

Alexander didn't say anything else. He turned the silver pill case over once between his fingers, then stopped, and just waited. Like he already knew the answer and was giving the other man time to arrive at it on his own.

Grayson's father cleared his throat. "Children can be difficult to control during competitive play," he said, his tone smoothed down to something almost reasonable. "If the West boy sustained an injury, we regret that."

Alexander didn't respond. He glanced down the corridor toward Oliver—one look, brief, precise—then brought his gaze back.

That was all it took. Grayson's father understood.

"Oliver." His voice dropped a register. "For the incident after the match—we apologize."

"Good," Alexander said.

One word. That was it. Grayson's father didn't linger. He left with his son and his assistant, back straight, pace just slightly faster than it needed to be.

I watched them go. Something in my chest settled, slow and quiet.

I'd seen plenty of people "go to bat" for someone—loud, performative, built for an audience. Alexander hadn't performed anything. He'd just stood there and let Grayson do the math himself.

I turned to him. "Thank you."

It came out flat and clean. No warmth, no edge. Just the words, hanging in the air between us.

He slipped the pill case back into his inside pocket. "Don't mention it." A short pause. "They owed you the apology. Not me."

That stopped me for a second. He said it the way someone states a fact they've already confirmed—not modest, not fishing for a response. Just accurate.

He knows exactly where the line is. The thought made me slightly uneasy, and not in a bad way. More like: this person is going to be harder to read than I expected.

I filed it away and kept going. "You recognized me from a photo?"

"Your family submitted a full profile when the arrangement was being finalized. You were in it."

Straightforward. No hesitation. It also reminded me, cleanly, that in this entire situation I had never been the one holding the file. I was in it.

"And you came to St. Margaret's today for—"

"Lucas," he said. "Something to discuss in person."

Lucas.

I held that name still for a moment. Lucas Hart. Gold-rimmed glasses, clipped manner, the habit of handing me a notepad instead of waiting for me to speak. The man who'd told me, the morning I was discharged, that he was there on someone else's behalf—that if he hadn't gotten me back to seeing, a certain person wouldn't have let him return to London.

A certain person.

"Is it him?"

I didn't push it. Not here, not with Oliver twenty feet away and a corridor full of fluorescent light and no privacy. I just stored the thread and moved on.

"So you happened to be passing," I said.

"I happened to be passing," he confirmed.

We both left it there. The silence between us wasn't awkward. It felt more like two people at the same table, sorting through what they'd just learned before anyone said anything else.

I noticed he never used a question to deflect. Every question he asked was direct, every answer he gave landed without softeners. No what do you think, no does that make sense. He just said the thing.

Julian had loved a well-placed question. Don't you think, Eleanor? Isn't that what you wanted?

I cut that thought off before it could finish. Not the time. Not the place.

Oliver's voice cut through from behind me. "Hang on—" He'd pushed himself upright on his crutch. "You said she's your fiancée?"

He looked at me, brow creased, with the total lack of filter that only fifteen-year-olds can pull off. "But aren't you supposed to be with Isa—"

I turned and put one hand on his shoulder. Not hard. Just enough.

"Oliver," I said, keeping my voice easy. "Did you take your anti-inflammatory?"

He blinked. "What? No, I wasn't—"

"The doctor said to keep the ankle immobilized. You've been standing on it for twenty minutes."

I looked at him directly. Not a warning, just steady—the expression I'd been using on him since he was nine, the one that meant we'll talk later, not here. He knew it.

He looked at me, then at Alexander, then back at me. His mouth closed.

Alexander hadn't moved. He didn't look away from Oliver, didn't look uncomfortable. He just stood there, expression unchanged, like this was a variable he'd already accounted for.

"...Fine," Oliver muttered, and dropped back onto his chair.

I exhaled without letting it show.

I felt Alexander move behind me—not toward me, just a tiny change in how he stood. Like he'd taken in the whole scene and settled on something. He'd watched it all. I was sure of that.

He's measuring me. The thought was clear and unsentimental.

Oliver headed to the nurses' station for his discharge paperwork, and the corridor went quiet.

Alexander moved to the window. The afternoon light outside was flat and gray, the kind that makes London look like a photograph of itself. He put one hand in his pocket and spoke without turning.

"Do you have anything on this afternoon?"

"Nothing planned," I said.

He reached into his jacket and took out the pill case again. He opened it, tipped one tablet into his palm, and put it directly in his mouth—no water, just bit down. I heard it crack. There was a faint bitter smell, like ground mineral, there and gone.

He closed the case and pocketed it. Then he looked at me.

"Do you have your documents with you?"

I paused. "Yes."

I'd packed everything my mother sent—the forged papers, the supporting documents, Isabella's passport. I didn't know why I'd brought all of it to a hospital visit. Force of habit, maybe. New city. Keep everything close.

Alexander's gaze was direct, no preamble. "The registry office is open until three. We can make it if we leave now."