Chapter 4 - The Harbor at Midnight
By the end of the second week, the dynamic inside the Mercer estate had shifted in ways neither of them could have anticipated.
The staff noticed it first. Frank Dorsey stopped checking his watch every time Riley walked into a room. The senior cook started leaving extra portions of lasagna in the fridge with For Riley (Hands Off, Jonah) written on a sticky note. And Jonah... Jonah stopped hiding in his dark office.
On a freezing Friday night at midnight, Riley found him sitting alone in the glass-enclosed solarium that overlooked the Chesapeake Bay. The moon was a sliver of silver cast across the dark, churning water, throwing long, skeletal shadows across the stone floor.
Jonah sat in his chair, a glass of bourbon resting on the low table beside him, staring out into the absolute blackness of the horizon.
Riley walked in quietly, carrying a mug of chamomile tea and a heavy wool blanket. Without a word, she draped the blanket over his shoulders, tucking it securely around his legs where the paralysis kept his circulation sluggish and cold.
Jonah didn’t look at her immediately. He let his fingers brush against the warm wool.
“You’re still here,” he murmured, his voice husky.
“My shift ended twenty minutes ago,” Riley said, pulling up a sleek leather armchair and sitting down opposite him, wrapping her hands around her mug. “My car is still blocked in by Frank’s SUV, so I’m essentially your hostage until morning.”
Jonah turned his head, his gray eyes catching the pale moonlight. “Why didn’t you leave when I snapped at you on Tuesday?”
Riley took a slow sip of her tea, considering the question.
“Because you weren’t snapping at me,” she said simply. “You were angry at your legs. And since your legs aren’t here to defend themselves, I seemed like a convenient substitute punching bag.”
A dry, quiet chuckle escaped Jonah’s throat—a rare, gravelly sound that seemed to scrape against vocal cords that hadn’t laughed in months.
“You’re entirely too perceptive for your own good, Ms. Quinn,” he said softly.
“It comes with the territory. When you spend seven years working in acute rehab, you learn to read the difference between someone being a jerk and someone being terrified.”
Jonah’s expression tightened, the shadow of his old life creeping back into his eyes. He looked down at his trembling hand resting on the armrest.
“I used to control every variable,” Jonah spoke, his voice dropping into a register so raw and vulnerable it made Riley’s breath hitch. “Every shipment, every dock worker, every threat. If someone crossed me, I dealt with it. Now... I can’t even put on my own socks without feeling like a child.”
Riley set her mug down on the table with a soft clink. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees, and looked directly into his tormented eyes.
“You survived an assassination attempt that should have killed you twice over, Jonah,” she said, using his first name for the very first time.
The sound of it hung in the air between them, heavy and intimate.
“Your spinal cord was crushed, your life was upended, and everyone around you treated you like a porcelain doll waiting to break,” Riley continued, her voice unwavering. “You’re mourning the life you lost. That doesn't make you weak. It makes you human. But sitting in this dark room feeling sorry for yourself isn't going to make those nerves reconnect.”
Jonah stared at her, stunned by the sheer, unadulterated bluntness of her words. No one—not his lawyers, not his doctors, not even his mother—had ever spoken to him with such fearless honesty.
“You really have a death wish, don’t you?” he whispered, though there was no heat left in his tone.
“I have a mortgage, student loans, and a profound intolerance for self-pity,” Riley replied with a faint, crooked smile. “Drink your bourbon, finish your tea, and tomorrow morning at six, we are going to work on your core transfers without you trying to throw yourself across the room.”
Jonah held her gaze for a long, endless heartbeat. The heavy, suffocating weight that had pressed down on his chest for six months finally seemed to crack, letting in a sliver of cool, reviving air.
May you like
“Six a.m.,” Jonah repeated, a ghost of a real smile touching his lips. “You’re a tyrant, Riley.”
“And you’re a difficult client,” she shot back, standing up and smoothing down her jeans. “See you in the morning, Mr. Mercer.”
