Jokull watched Aine with a possessive glint in his eyes that he made no effort to conceal. "You can deal with them yourself," he said, his voice carrying that quiet authority that never needed to be raised, "but I won't give them the opportunity to touch you either."
Aine smirked. She tilted her head, something playful and dangerous flickering behind her eyes. "Says the president," she teased, letting the title sit between them like a challenge. "But I've been craving your touch ever since that day in the library." She held his gaze, unhurried, her tongue tracing her lower lip with deliberate slowness.
The air between them shifted.
Jokull's gaze dropped, moving over her with the careful attention of someone who had memorised every detail and was simply confirming nothing had changed. When he looked back up his voice had dropped lower, threaded with something warm and amused. "Is that why you're not hiding them from me?"
Aine's smirk softened into something smaller. More honest. She shook her head slowly, a quiet smile playing at the corners of her lips, the kind she reserved for moments like this when her walls came down just enough to let him see something real.
"But not today," she said. "I have a class to attend."
Jokull leaned in without hurry and pressed a soft kiss to her cheek. Tender. Deliberate. The kind that lingered even after it ended.
"Have a nice day."
Aine simply looked at him for a moment, something unreadable passing through her expression, before she turned and dashed out. Jokull stayed exactly where he was, watching her retreating figure until the doorway swallowed her completely.
The smile that crossed his face after she was gone was one no one else ever got to see.
The happiness on Jokull's face faded the moment his phone rang.
He stared at the screen, something shifting behind his eyes, that warm private expression dissolving so completely it was hard to believe it had ever been there. He stood very still, the phone in his hand, contemplating. The ringtone filled the empty hall with a persistence that felt almost accusatory.
With a reluctant sigh, he answered.
"Hello, Mum. What is it again?"
"You need to come home." The voice on the other end was urgent, stripped of its usual composure. "Your dad is now on life support."
The silence that followed was not the silence of shock. It was something colder. More considered.
Jokull's jaw tightened slowly, the muscle feathering beneath his skin. When he spoke, his voice was low and even, each word placed with the precision of someone who had rehearsed this particular feeling for a very long time.
"He can die for all I care." There was no heat in it. That was what made it chilling. "After all, you and that perilous boy of yours kept everything a secret. I'm not ready to let my reputation and happiness go for them. I never considered him family." A pause. "I am happy with the small business I'm doing underworld. Sooner or later I will end everything with your family. After I get what I'm looking for, I'll start a fresh life. No stains from the past. Nothing."
A second voice cut in from the other end, sharp and unrestrained.
"What did that scumbag say?" The words crackled through the line like a lit fuse. "This is your fault. Don't you dare blame me, woman. I didn't tell your lame husband to start it."
Jokull pulled the phone slightly from his ear, his expression unreadable, and ended the call with the quiet finality of someone closing a door they had no intention of opening again.
He stood alone in the hallway for exactly three seconds.
Then the mask returned. Smooth. Effortless. Presidential.
"President Jokull."
He turned. Dismas stood a few feet away, watching him with the careful attention of someone paid to notice things.
"Oh, Assistant Dismas," Jokull said, his tone settling back into its usual composed register as naturally as breathing. "What is it?"
Dismas studied him for a moment, unhurried. "You look pissed."
"Oh, it's fine." Jokull waved it off with the ease of a man who had been dismissing concern his entire life. "Let's go."
Dismas held his gaze a beat longer than necessary, then nodded slowly. "If you say so."
He fell into step beside Jokull as they moved down the corridor, the conversation already buried, the mask already sealed.
But Dismas had seen what he had seen.
And some things, once noticed, are not easily forgotten.
Class dragged on and eventually cracked into its usual chaos, conversations bleeding across desks, chairs scraping, the pretence of learning dissolving into the comfortable noise of an afternoon losing its shape. Aine sat through it all, distracted, her thoughts elsewhere, which was nothing new.
Jessy leaned over. "Aine, let's go."
"I can't go," Aine replied. "I'm busy with something."
Jessy studied her for half a second, then shrugged with the unbothered ease that was entirely her own. "Oh fine. Text me if you get home."
"Sure."
The classroom emptied around her in waves until the noise faded completely and the silence that replaced it was the particular kind that only exists in schools after hours. Heavy. Unhurried. Like the building itself had exhaled.
Aine settled back into her chair, slipped her airpods in, and let the music take over. Cool and unhurried, filling the space behind her eyes where her thoughts had been too loud. She didn't notice when the last of the staff passed the corridor. She didn't notice when the sky outside the windows deepened. She didn't notice much of anything at all.
She was asleep before she realised she had been tired.
Jokull appeared in the doorway some hours past closing time, the school reduced now to the quiet shuffling of a few remaining staff and the low hum of empty corridors.
He stopped.
Whatever he had been about to say dissolved entirely.
She was asleep at her desk, her head resting gently on her folded arms, her airpods still in, her expression smoothed into something unguarded and soft. His princess. Completely unbothered by the world, looking so utterly peaceful, so quietly beautiful, that for a long moment he simply stood there and let himself look.
He pulled a chair close without a sound and leaned in, resting his head gently against her neck, his face so close to hers that he could feel the soft rhythm of her breathing against his skin. Warm. Steady. Like something he could get used to.
He stayed there longer than he intended.
Then his breath brushed against her ear, warm and close and impossible to ignore.
Aine's eyes flew open.
For one suspended second she had absolutely no idea what was happening. Then the chair scraped against the floor with a sharp thud as she jerked back, her heart throwing itself against her ribs, and she would have gone over entirely if his hands hadn't moved first, catching her arms with a sureness that left no room for falling, pulling her upright and directly into his chest.
They stayed like that. Still. The surprise settling between them like dust after a fall.
Each looking at the other from a distance that was no distance at all.
"You could've given me a heart attack, you know," Aine said, breathless and wide eyed, her voice caught somewhere between alarm and something she wasn't quite ready to name.
"Pressure?" Jokull replied, leaning into her with a playful glint that had no business being that attractive. "I'm your pressure."
Aine laughed despite herself, the sound escaping before she could think to hold it back. "You and your interesting jokes."
"Sorry for keeping you waiting."
"It's fine," she said, her voice softening. "I had a peace of mind."
He held her gaze a moment longer, something warm and unhurried sitting behind his eyes. Then he straightened.
"Let's go."
Before she could respond or gather herself or do anything remotely sensible, Jokull lifted her effortlessly from the chair and into his arms as though the decision had already been made and her opinion was a charming formality.
"Someone might see us," Aine said immediately, shifting against him. "Let me down."
"I literally do not care," Jokull said, already moving toward the door, entirely unbothered, the ghost of a smile on his lips.
Aine gave up with a quiet exhale, which was not the same as not caring, but was close enough for now.