After the al, they returned to Laura’s gallery, the sunlight now softer, casting long golden beams across the polished wooden floors.
Ross moved through the space with deliberate steps, his gaze lingering on certain works as though weighing their secrets.
He was ticulous, taking his ti to study each piece from different angles, occasionally stepping closer as if to feel the brushstrokes through the air itself.
What surprised Laura most was not his attention to detail, but the sharpness of his observations.
He asked her pointed, thoughtful questions—about color choices, thematic balance, and the emotional intent behind specific works.
His remarks were so precise that she found herself montarily forgetting the rumors and warnings, drawn instead into a shared language only true art lovers spoke.
At one point, Ross stopped in front of a stormy seascape and said quietly,
"This one... it doesn’t just depict the ocean—it confronts it." The way he said it, with a subtle weight in his voice, made Laura feel as if he wasn’t speaking only about the painting.
By the ti the day drew to a close, both felt they had gained sothing aningful.
Ross had refined his vision for the pieces that might grace his ho, and Laura had glimpsed a side of him that was thoughtful, almost disarmingly so.
They parted outside the gallery as evening settled over Paris, the city lights flickering to life in the distance.
Their handshake lingered just a mont longer than necessary, and Ross’s parting smile was the kind that suggested unfinished business.
Later that night, Laura’s phone lit up with an incoming call.
She was just getting ready to settle in with a glass of wine when she saw the na on the screen—Lois.
She smiled faintly before answering. "Hey, sis—"
"So? How did it go? Did the maniac try to force himself on you?" Lois’s voice ca in fast, sharp, and almost frantic, cutting her off before she could even say hello.
Laura blinked, caught off guard.
"What? Of course not!" she said quickly, sitting up straighter in her chair.
"Ross was a perfect gentleman the entire ti. Not once did he cross a line. Honestly, sis, you’ve completely misjudged him."
Her voice softened slightly as she continued, but there was an undercurrent of firmness in her tone.
"He’s nothing like what you’ve been saying. He’s smart, thoughtful... he actually listened when I spoke. He asked intelligent questions about my work and seed genuinely interested. I think you’re letting rumors cloud your judgnt."
Lois was quiet for a beat, her silence heavy over the line.
"Laura," she said finally, her voice low but tense, "you don’t understand the kind of man you’re dealing with."
Laura sighed, rubbing her temple. "I understand perfectly fine. I know how to take care of myself. Please, just... don’t turn this into sothing it’s not."
The conversation stretched on for another fifteen minutes, each sister trying—unsuccessfully—to sway the other.
Laura spoke with growing warmth and conviction, painting Ross in the colors of kindness and charm, while Lois responded with caution, her words laced with an urgency she couldn’t shake.
When the call finally ended, Lois remained seated in the dim light of her living room, the phone still in her hand.
She stared at nothing, her mind replaying every word Laura had said.
"How?" The question whispered itself out loud, unbidden.
How had Ross managed to disarm her sister so completely in a single day?
Laura wasn’t naive, and yet... the tone in her voice tonight was different—softer, warr, as though so invisible thread had already begun to pull her in.
A knot of dread tightened in Lois’s chest. She feared for her sister more than ever.
But reality pressed against her—she couldn’t just drop everything in Parkland City and fly to Paris.
Not without proof, not without sothing to justify the urgency.
Still, as she sat alone in the quiet, Lois felt the faint, icy certainty that ti was running out.
***
That night, after a brief and casual conversation with her boyfriend over the phone, Laura lay back against her pillows and let her eyes drift shut.
She hadn’t been particularly tired, but her body felt relaxed in that gentle Parisian night air, the faint hum of the city beyond her window lulling her into sleep.
She didn’t rember falling asleep.
One mont she was staring at the moonlight spilling across her ceiling, and the next, she was in a strange, vivid dream.
When she woke, her eyes flew open, and she sucked in a sharp breath.
Her heart was pounding so hard it hurt, and her skin was slick with sweat.
She sat up abruptly, pushing the sheets aside, still caught between the dream and waking reality.
No... that couldn’t have been...
But it had felt so real—too real. In the dream, Ross had been there, his eyes locked on hers with an intensity that made her pulse race.
His hands had been on her—confident, deliberate—and his lips had found hers with a heat that left her trembling.
The dream had carried them further, much further, into territory she had never actually experienced in real life.
Laura was still a virgin, and the only fra of reference she had ca from the romance films she sotis watched or the faint whispers of her own imagination.
Yet, sohow, her subconscious had filled in the blanks with sensations so vivid they seed burned into her skin.
Her gaze fell downward, and her cheeks flushed hot.
The silk of her nightgown clung damply to her body, and the sheets beneath her bore the undeniable trace of her release.
"This..." Her voice was a whisper in the quiet room, trembling with disbelief.
She couldn’t finish the thought.
This was the first ti sothing like this had ever happened to her, and she wasn’t sure whether to feel embarrassed, unsettled, or... curious.
Her mind was all on Ross at this ti.
She lay back slowly, staring up at the ceiling, trying to piece together why the dream had happened in the first place.
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