Kira stayed quiet on her side of the door. Derek stood in the corridor and listened, straining for any sound at all. What he got was silence so complete it pressed back against him.

He knocked again, harder this time. "Kira. Open the door."

Nothing.

"Please." The word came out with more effort than he’d expected. "It’s me. Open the door."

"I know who it is," she said, from somewhere close on the other side. Her voice was low and flat. "Go away."

Leo whined deep inside Derek’s chest at the quiet sorrow threading through her words. Her voice caught him off guard. He had never heard her sound so small.

"Just let me in. I’m sorry, alright? I’m sorry."

"Goodnight, Derek."

"Kira." He pressed his palm flat against the door. "I’m not leaving until you open this door."

He felt that if he could just get into that room, if he could just see her, he could fix this.

She didn’t answer.

He stood there for a long while, knocking at intervals, saying her name, getting silence in return. Eventually he stopped knocking, lowered himself slowly to the floor, sat with his back against the doorframe, and leaned his head against the wall.

Some time later, the door clicked open.

Derek looked up sharply to see a young girl of about Kira’s height, with ginger curls, stepping out carefully and closing the door quietly behind her.

He started to scowl, but then remembered Kira had a friend called Jessica. This must be her. He rose to his full height, towering over her.

Jessica, for her part, looked up at him and did a rapid internal calculation about whether to bow, curtsey, or run.

This was her first time seeing him up close. He was considerably more intimidating up close than she had presumably prepared herself for. She had no idea how her best friend found the nerve to stand up to this terrifying rock of a man.

"Um... maybe give her some space?" Jessica offered awkwardly, shifting from foot to foot.

Derek’s scowl deepened, but he said nothing.

Jessica gave a quick nod, then said, "I’ll just...," and turned and walked away down the corridor with the brisk pace of someone choosing not to run.

Derek watched her go until she turned the corner. Then he sat back down against the door and closed his eyes again.

***

When Kira woke, the room was still mostly dark, the pale grey of very early morning showed from the open curtains.

She felt alone. More alone than she had felt in a very long time. She rolled over as the events of the previous day started to come back to her in slow but embarrassing details.

Derek’s cruel words, Lydia’s revelations, the way she had come apart in Jessica’s arms. Then the persistent knocking later that night and Derek’s almost pleading voice on the other side of the door.

She had wanted to open it. That was the honest truth. She had sat on the edge of the bed and listened to him say her name and wanted to, but she had made herself stay exactly where she was.

Because if she kept pretending she was bulletproof, he’d keep shooting. He needed to understand that his words left scars.

She got out of bed and pulled on her leggings and the jumper she’d worn yesterday, decided she needed air before the sun was properly up. A walk. Something to clear her head before she had to face the day and everything waiting in it.

She opened the door and immediately pitched forward as her foot caught something in front of the door. But a hand shot out and steadied her before she could go down.

Derek was sitting with his back against the doorframe, his long legs stretched across the corridor, his tie loosened and his jacket folded over one arm.

His hair was slightly dishevelled and there were the particular shadows under his eyes that came from a night spent not sleeping, and he looked up at her from the floor with an expression that was carefully empty of anything he was prepared to explain.

Kira stared at him.

He had actually stayed.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, when she had recovered enough to form words.

"You wouldn’t open the door," he said, and rose to his feet with unhurried ease, as if he had not just spent a night on a hotel corridor floor.

Kira didn’t know if that was dignity or stubbornness or possibly both.

He was still unfairly handsome, and she resented the flutter that moved through her stomach at the sight of him.

"I told you to leave," she said, turning away before her face showed something she wasn’t ready to explain.

He fell into step behind her without a word.

She stopped and turned around. "I don’t want company. Go away."

"No."

"What do you actually want?"

"To take you home."

"I’m going home. Just not with you."

She turned and kept walking.

When they hit the lobby and headed for the car park, she saw the guards lounging in the cars. They looked like they’d been dragged through a hedge backwards and were being professionally dignified about it.

They snapped to attention the moment they saw her coming through the doors, which was somehow worse than if they had been irritated.

She felt guilty for what she had put them through since yesterday. From drugging them to making them spend the night outside of their comfort zone.

Connor stepped forward. "Your Highness."

Kira avoided looking at his eyes. She couldn’t afford it. The weight of the previous day—drugging them, then pretending she’d fallen asleep just like they had—felt heavy in her chest.

"Don’t worry about the cars, Connor. I want to walk," Kira said and walked passed all of them.

She kept moving. Derek was still behind her. She turned and looked at him specifically. "Don’t come near me."

"Fine," Derek bit out.

He took Connor’s key, got into the car, and pulled it slowly forward until it idled at the car park exit. The guards had already begun to disperse, following Derek’s signal. Kira walked out of the hotel grounds and onto the pavement, and the car eased out behind her.

She kept her eyes forward. The headlights swept over her and the car rolled up alongside her, keeping pace.

"Get in," Derek said, from the open window.

She kept walking.

"Kira. Get in the car."

"I don’t need a ride, sir," she said pleasantly, without looking at him.

Derek let out a quiet chuckle despite himself. This stubborn woman. He had never dealt with anyone quite like her before. She could only be compared to his Nana.

"If you don’t get in now, I’m driving away and I’m not coming back."

"Do as you like," she said. "Just let me walk in peace."

"Alright," he said after a beat. "I shouldn’t have said that."

No answer.

After a few more attempts to coax her into the car, he realised she wasn’t planning to budge. Frustration started to coil inside him.

He couldn’t leave her out here. He also couldn’t sit in a warm car and watch her walk in the cold with the early morning air already biting at the back of his neck through the open window.

He sighed deeply, stopped the car completely, and got out. The cold hit him squarely and with more force than he had anticipated. He mind-linked Connor to collect the car and jogged to catch up with her.

"Hey, Kira!" he called, his breath clouding in the cold air. "Are you planning to freeze out here?!"