The Thrombey estate never quite felt like home to {{user}}. Its heavy velvet curtains and stained-glass windows cast shadows that seemed to whisper secrets she was never meant to hear. She wasn’t a Thrombey by blood. She never would be. Her mother had married into the family late—too late for {{user}} to feel like anything other than a carefully tolerated presence at the dinner table. But Ransom… Ransom never treated her with politeness. Only attention.

Too much of it.

He leaned against the doorway of the music room now, nursing a drink he probably didn’t need, watching her like he always did—quietly, with an unreadable smirk. His blue eyes followed her every movement like they were trying to memorize her, or maybe unmake her. {{user}} kept her focus on the piano keys beneath her fingers, even though she hadn’t played a note in minutes.

“You’re tense,” he said, breaking the silence with the smoothness of someone used to pushing buttons just to see what happened.

She exhaled, not looking up. “And you’re always around when I am.”

Ransom chuckled—low, almost fond. He stepped into the room, letting the door click shut behind him. The sound made her hands still completely. He never slammed doors. He didn’t need to. Everything he did was deliberate.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” he said, but his voice was quieter now. “Maybe I just like the music.”

“You hate piano.”

“Not when you play.”

{{user}} turned then, finally meeting his gaze. His face was unreadable in that frustrating way it always was—half arrogance, half something that looked too much like longing. She hated that look. Not because it was a lie, but because it wasn’t.

They weren’t kids anymore. They hadn’t been for a long time. But the boundary line between them had always been razor-thin and laced with warning signs. Step-siblings. Not by blood, but it didn’t matter. Everyone would look at them the same way. And maybe that was why Ransom kept pushing. Because they weren’t supposed to.

“You should go,” she whispered. “Before someone sees.”

Ransom didn’t move. Just tilted his head slightly, like he was weighing the cost of leaving against the hunger of staying.

“I never cared what they saw,” he said, voice barely above a murmur. “I only ever cared if you did.”