“I love you, you terrifyingly brilliant man.” Nora threw her arms around Søren in what she thought would be a quick, playful hug. But Søren pulled her close and held her tight to him. So tight it almost scared her. He buried his face in her hair and inhaled.

“Søren? What’s wrong?” she whispered. “You’ve been tense all night.”

Søren’s hand rested at her neck. She felt something, heard a click, and her white collar came off in Søren’s hands. She looked down at the collar and up at Søren.

“Sir?” Nora’s hands went numb. Her heart raced.

“I love you,” he said. “I love you enough to take this from you for a little while. I love you enough to give you this in return.”

He reached into his pocket and handed her a key with a white ribbon on it in place of a keychain. A white ribbon…the key to the White Room. She’d met Michael in that room last year and taken his virginity. Søren had given her this very key with the words He’s still a virgin…  You can close your eyes and pretend it’s…

“Søren?”

“You came back to me after years apart. And it gave me such joy to have you again that I neglected to ask the most important question—why? Why did you come back to me? And were you coming to me? Or were you leaving someone else?”

“You know I was—”

“I saw your book. I saw the dedication.”

Nora closed her eyes. She’d hoped Søren wouldn’t notice that for the first time ever she’d dedicated a book to someone other than him.

“Many waters…” Søren said. “You still love him.”

A tear fell from Nora’s eye. She couldn’t deny the words. But she didn’t want to admit it, either.

“I love you too much to keep you against your will,” Søren said.

Nora looked up at him.

“Even if against my will is what I want?”

“Even then.” The key felt warm on the palm of her hand. She stared at it and wondered. “Go. You know it’s what you want.”

Nora’s fingers curled around the key. A well of hope sprung up in her heart. But she tamped it back down. No…she couldn’t believe…could it be?

“I’ll come back,” she promised. “I’ll always come back to you.”

“I know,” he said with cold, calm arrogance. “If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t let you go.”

“Believe it. It’s true.” She took a step back. Then another. “Always.”

“Eleanor, if you have any mercy in that dark heart of yours, when you leave right now, you will walk and not run.”

She gave him a smile, a smile that told him everything she wanted to say but didn’t have the words or the voice to say.

“I’d never run from you, remember? But I’ll always run back.”

Nora didn’t kiss him or touch him anymore. If she did, she feared she wouldn’t be able to stop. And she had to go, had to leave, had to see whoever waited for her behind the door of the White Room.

Turning around she walked with agonizing slowness to the door at the back of the bar. She opened the door and stepped across the threshold, shutting the door behind her.

Once alone, Nora stopped and looked down at her feet. She wore high heels. She always did these days at the club. Søren preferred them to the boots she’d always strapped on during her days as a dominatrix. More demure, high heels were. More ladylike. She could do anything in her heels if she had to. Anything but run, and she knew that was the real reason Søren made her wear them.

She kicked off her shoes and left them behind in the hall. And Nora didn’t walk and she didn’t crawl and she didn’t fly.

She ran. Down the hall she ran as if the hounds of hell nipped at her heels. She ran as if God himself had ordered her to. She ran as if her life depended on it and in that moment she might have sworn that it did.

She didn’t know why she ran. She didn’t know who or what waited for her in the White Room. She only knew she had to get there as fast as she could and whoever it was, he was worth running to.

Nora’s hand shook so hard when she finally reached the door to the White Room, she could barely get the key in the lock. But then it was in, and the door flew open, and she stopped running. She stopped running because for no reason, none that made sense, none that mattered, he was right there in front of her.

“Wesley…” she breathed, unable to take another step. But she didn’t have to, because he was on his feet and running to her now, and he held her in his arms and she held him in hers, and she knew she’d never run again. Not from him anyway. Not from her Wesley.

“Nora…I missed you…so much…”

She pulled back to stare at him. Her Wesley—same boyishly handsome face, same big brown eyes that looked at her like he’d never seen anything like her before.

Nora took his face in her hands, still unable to really believe it was him, her Wes, right in front of her.

“My God, you need a haircut.”