Chapter 3 - SHADOWS ON THE GLASS
Three weeks melted away like the early January ice under the pale winter sun. What began as cautious text exchanges blossomed into daily rhythms. David sent photos of blueprints alongside clumsy thirty-second videos of himself practicing the American Sign Language alphabet, his brow furrowed in hilarious concentration while the twins giggled in the background. Emma found herself checking her phone with an eagerness that terrified her.
On a bright, brittle Tuesday afternoon, David appeared at the entrance of the city archives. The massive limestone building was quiet, smelling of aged parchment, leather bindings, and cedar dust. David stood by the velvet partition of the restoration lab, his hands tucked into his trench coat pockets, watching Emma work through the reinforced glass window.
She wore white cotton handling gloves, hunched over an eighteenth-century land deed, using an ultra-fine camelhair brush to lift century-old soot from the parchment. The sunlight caught the side of her face, illuminating the fierce, beautiful focus in her eyes. When she paused and stretched, her gaze swept toward the partition, and her face instantly ignited with surprised delight.
She quickly secured her workstation, shed her gloves, and came out into the main reading room.
What are you doing here? she signed, her expression teasing. Are you lost, Mr. Architect?
David grinned, reaching into his pocket to pull out a sleek, modern paper cup of hot green tea—her favorite—and a small sketchbook. He had drawn a detailed, whimsical architectural cross-section of the very library they were standing in, but in the center reading room, he had sketched a detailed portrait of Emma sitting at her restoration bench, crowned with a tiny hand-drawn halo.
Underneath the sketch, he had written: Kidnapping you for lunch. The twins demand your presence at the conservatory. Grace claims she found a fern that looks like an elephant.
Emma pressed the sketch to her chest, her eyes crinkling. Give me five minutes.
The afternoon at the Lincoln Park Conservatory was pure joy. The humid, tropical heat under the soaring glass domes was a sharp contrast to the biting winter outside. The twins bounded between rows of towering palms and vibrant orchids, pulling Emma by each hand to show her every bizarre leaf and hidden stone fountain. David walked alongside them, his shoulder occasionally brushing against Emma’s. Each brush sent a startling, electric warmth straight down to her fingertips.
They sat on a stone bench beside a pond filled with bright orange koi. The girls were occupied tossing approved pellets of fish food into the rippling water.
David reached over, taking Emma’s hand in his. He turned toward her, making sure his face was fully in the light so she could read his lips, speaking clearly while simultaneously signing the words he had spent hours memorizing: You make them happy. You make me happy.
Emma’s heart leaped into her throat. She looked down at their joined hands, feeling an overwhelming swell of tenderness. She lifted her hand to sign: I was afraid for so long that I took up too much space. That loving me was work nobody wanted to do.
David shook his head firmly, his hazel eyes darkening with intense conviction. He leaned closer, framing her jaw with his free hand, his thumb gently brushing across her cheekbone. He didn't sign this time; he spoke with slow, unhurried articulation, his lips forming each word with crystal-clear intent: "You are not work, Emma. You are the easiest thing I have ever chosen."
He leaned in and kissed her.
The kiss was soft, deliberate, and tasted of sweet peppermint and winter air. Emma closed her eyes, letting the phantom vibrations of the bustling city fade into absolute nothingness, surrendering to the profound safety of his arms.
Across the pathway, behind the dense curtain of hanging fiddle-leaf figs, a shadow shifted.
A tall woman in an impeccably tailored camel cashmere coat stood watching them, her manicured fingers clutching a designer leather handbag with white-knuckled intensity. Her blonde bob was sleek, her jaw squared in cold, possessive fury.
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It was Evelyn Vance—Sarah’s older sister, the wealthy heiress to the Vance construction empire, and the woman who had spent the last seven years convinced that David Hayes and his daughters were her personal property to mold, control, and ultimately claim.
As David pulled Emma closer for another lingering kiss, Evelyn snapped her handbag shut with a sharp, leather click, her eyes narrowing into cold, predatory slits.
