Catherine turned toward him as he opened his laptop, the soft glow of the screen lighting his face, sharpening the quiet focus in his eyes. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

"So... this is my password," he said, almost casually, as he signed in. "This laptop is where I keep everything."

There was something deliberate in the way he said it, something that didn’t quite match the lightness of his tone.

"How good are you with Linux?" he asked, glancing at her briefly.

Catherine frowned faintly, not entirely sure where this was going, but she answered anyway. "I’m used to it. We use it in the lab too."

He nodded, as if that confirmed something for him, and then... he continued.

Not just with the laptop.

With everything.

Passwords. Encrypted folders. Backup systems. He repeated certain details twice, slow enough for her to remember, as though it mattered that she did. And before she could even fully process that, he moved on, into things far beyond a device.

Accounts. Investments. Holdings spread across places she hadn’t even heard of. Names of people who owed him, agreements in place, risks he was taking, risks he was avoiding. Even projections... plans that clearly hadn’t been shared with anyone else.

Catherine sat there, listening at first out of curiosity, trying to follow the flow of information as it unfolded. It was... impressive, in a way she hadn’t expected, a side of him she had never truly seen laid out so plainly.

He had put on his glasses somewhere in the middle of it all, the thin frame resting low on the bridge of his nose as he leaned slightly toward the screen. It was such a small, ordinary habit—and yet, on him, it felt disarmingly intimate.

The light reflected faintly against the lenses, softening the sharpness of his gaze, but it didn’t dull it. If anything, it made his blue eyes seem deeper, more focused, the kind that pulled you in without trying.

Catherine listened.

At least, she tried to.

Her attention drifted between his words and the quiet details of him—the way his lips moved as he explained something complex with effortless clarity, the faint sheen on them when he paused mid-sentence, the subtle shift of his jaw when he thought ahead of his own words. Even the way he lifted his hand to cough lightly into his fist, composed and unselfconscious, felt... oddly endearing.

It was distracting.

Dangerously so.

Because somewhere between his voice and those small, unguarded moments, something inside her softened completely.

Her gaze lingered on him a second too long, her thoughts slipping away from everything he was saying, settling instead into something quieter, something far more personal.

I could live like this...

The realization came without resistance, without hesitation.

Like this.

Watching him exist in the same space as her, speaking, moving, breathing as though it was the most natural thing in the world for them to share it. No tension. No distance. No uncertainty about where they stood.

Just this quiet, steady closeness.

Her fingers curled slightly in her lap, a faint warmth spreading through her chest as she let herself sit in that thought a moment longer than she probably should have.

For the rest of my life.

It wasn’t overwhelming. It wasn’t frightening. If anything... it felt right.

He must have noticed her getting distracted he turned to look at her. He didn’t chide her though. He made her a warm cup of tea and offered her.

Catherine smiled from behind the cup.

Yes, I can live like this.

He continued, as there were a lot of things he was involved in. But as the minutes passed, something shifted.

It wasn’t just information anymore. It was the way he spoke. The steadiness in his voice. The lack of hesitation. The complete absence of anything held back.

And slowly, quietly, unease crept in.

Her fingers curled slightly in her lap as she watched him, really watched him now.

He wasn’t just explaining things. He was... handing them over.

"What are we doing here?" she asked, finally cutting in, her voice softer than she intended, but firm enough to stop him.

Maximilian paused, his hand still resting on the keyboard. Then he looked at her... And smiled.

"I’m letting you know about me," he said.

Simple. Too simple.

Catherine held his gaze, her chest tightening in a way she couldn’t quite explain. If he had said it lightly, she might have brushed it off. If he had joked, she might have laughed.

But he didn’t.

There was weight behind those words. Intent. And that was what unsettled her.

Because this wasn’t just trust. This was something deeper. Something that felt... final.

She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry, as the realization settled in.

He was giving her everything. Not in pieces. Not over time. All at once.

And for the first time since she had walked into that room, fear slipped quietly into her chest, wrapping around her ribs and pulling just tight enough to make her breath feel shallow.

Not because she didn’t want it. But because she understood exactly what it meant.

Catherine reached forward and gently closed the laptop, the soft click sounding far louder than it should have in the quiet room.

"What’s the urgency of this?" she asked, her voice steadier than the unease rising inside her. "You’re young... and I don’t have to know all of this right now."

She had just opened her heart to him, had barely steadied herself after everything that confession had stirred within her—and now this... this overwhelming sense of finality pressed too close, too fast.

What if something happened again? Just like their last life, right after she confessed? She wouldn’t be able to live with that.

The thought slipped in before she could stop it, cold and sharp.

What if they were separated... like before? What if this time it wasn’t something she could fight? Something she couldn’t outthink, outmaneuver...

Something like death?

A faint chill ran through her, raising the hair along her arms.

Maximilian noticed it immediately.

"Catherine..." His voice softened as he reached for her hand, his fingers wrapping around hers with quiet firmness. There was no impatience in him, no frustration. There was only concern, steady and grounding.

"I’ve wanted to do this for a long time," he said gently. "I just... found the right moment now. You’ll have to know eventually. Tomorrow, a year from now... why not today?"

Catherine swallowed, her gaze lifting to meet his, her pulse still uneven.

"I don’t have to know tomorrow either," she said, trying to pull away from the weight of it. "Maybe in ten years... or twenty... maybe even a hundred. Not today."

She tried to stand, but he didn’t let her go.