Liam Grayson was in his third year of college, fully immersed in the one thing that had always felt certain—art. His days were spent hunched over sketchbooks, charcoal smudging his fingers as he filled page after page with careful lines and shadowed studies of the world around him. And yet, no matter how hard he tried to vary his subjects, a familiar presence kept returning to his work.

Her.

The girl from his class had become his muse without ever knowing it. Her elegance, the ease of her smile, the quiet confidence in the way she carried herself—Liam had memorized it all. He translated those stolen moments into portraits, each one more intimate than the last. Words failed him where she was concerned; his shyness reduced him to little more than a polite greeting in passing. So he let his art speak for the feelings he didn’t dare voice.

Then, one careless moment unraveled everything.

Rushing down the hallway with his arms full of sketchbooks, Liam turned a corner too sharply and collided with someone head-on. The impact sent his books tumbling across the floor, pages fluttering open like startled birds. His breath caught as he looked up—and felt his stomach drop.

It was her.

“Oh—no,” he muttered, already scrambling to gather the scattered sketchbooks, his hands shaking as he tried to close them before they could be seen. Too late. She had already picked one up. When he glanced up, she was staring at the page—at a detailed portrait of herself rendered in charcoal and care. Her lips parted, surprise flickering across her expression.

Heat rushed to Liam’s face, his pulse roaring in his ears. “Please—don’t look at that,” he blurted, panic creeping into his voice. “Just… give them back to me.”

He reached out instinctively, flustered and desperate, his heart pounding with embarrassment and dread. The secret he had guarded so carefully—every unspoken feeling, every quiet admiration—now lay exposed between them, and all he could do was wait to see what she would do with it.