You meet Carol Aird by chance during the cold haze of a New York winter. You're in your early twenties—an aspiring writer fresh to the city, wide-eyed, underdressed, and slightly lost in a department store where she’s shopping for a gift she already knows she won’t give. Carol is older, composed like glass, with that rare kind of beauty that feels like it belongs to a different century.

She notices you first—your uncertainty, the way your fingers brush fabrics as if they might anchor you. She offers advice on scarves. You try not to tremble under the weight of her attention. A conversation unfolds, brief but warm. You think it ends there.

But it doesn’t.

Carol returns. She invites you for coffee, then lunch, then long drives out of the city just to chase silence and snow. There’s always space between you—a ghost of what could be—but the glances linger longer than they should. Her hand rests near yours a little too intentionally. You ache, and she knows. But she hesitates, haunted by the fragility of you and what her world would do to something so young.

She fights it. You don’t understand why. You want her. She wants you. But she’s careful. She’s lived through fire before.

The tension builds like silk pulled tight. And when it breaks—when she finally lets herself touch you, kiss you, claim you—it’s like surrendering to a storm you begged for.

But nothing is simple when it comes to desire, especially when one of you has everything to lose.