Chapter 1
Fitz considered the darkness to be a seductive thing. In the beginning, the darkness had been something to fear—a vast and terrifying expanse that swallowed everything his eight-year-old mind knew. It was unrelenting, a nightly visitor that came without invitation and stayed for hours at a time in his childhood bedroom. The shadows had mocked his loneliness and whispered his worst fears, making his small heart pound with unfamiliar terror. But as the years peeled away, the darkness morphed, changing shape into something else. It no longer scared him. Instead, it drew him in—an intimate cloak where secret desires thrived, and where the flickering lines between fear and pleasure blurred beneath the veil of night.
Still, there was a fragment of his soul that resisted the night’s seductive embrace alone; a fragile yearning for the warmth of another’s presence—a breathing body beside his. It was why Fitz was both grateful and terrified to wake the morning after he had taken Olivia to bed.
Morning bled in slowly through the thick hotel curtains as Fitz’s eyes fluttered open, eyelids adjusting to the soft, familiar dim. The world outside remained cloaked in darkness, yet here, in his bed, there was a stillness that felt sacred. She was there, too—curled up in a small ball with her feet laced warmly against his thighs and her back curved against his chest. Her skin, faintly warm, was a balm to the restlessness inside him.
He paused, letting his senses savor the surreal intimacy for a moment longer, but the weight of reality pressed upon his chest. Swiftly, carefully, he eased away from her and slipped out of bed. When he reached the bathroom, he let the hot water cascade over him, feeling the steam wash away the tendrils of early morning guilt.
What had he been thinking? Jake had been so explicit—Olivia was off-limits. Fitz knew that perfectly well, but when she had stood there, vulnerability seeping from her pleading eyes, something inside him shattered. He hadn’t wanted to be strong anymore. This—the ache, the raw desire—had clawed its way to the surface and demanded to be freed. He was tired of denying himself the only thing he had ever truly wanted. Yet the price of giving in was immediate—a sickness that began to curl at his gut like a poison.
When he dressed swiftly and tiptoed back into the room, Olivia still slept, the faintest lines of contentment etched across her face. On the desk, he grabbed a pen and wrote a brief note on hotel stationery:
Sorry, Olivia. I had an early surgery. Stay as long as you like and order breakfast. Until Later, Fitz.
He didn’t know if the words were between lovers or colleagues, but it was all he could offer her—a veiled apology and a lifeline stretched thin by necessity.
When Olivia stirred awake, her muscles ached pleasantly in every place she’d imagined. She stretched luxuriously, still wrapped in the warm embrace of the bed, and then realized Fitz was gone. Her fingers found the note resting where he should have been.
She unfolded it slowly, eyes glancing over the neat handwriting. The words stung—polite, professional, distant. “Until Later, Fitz.” Not “Yours,” not “Love,” not even “See you soon.” Just “Fitz.”
A frown crept across her lips as questions threatened to overwhelm her. Did he think of her as nothing more than a tag-along little sister? Was she just an inconvenient distraction, a beautiful mistake? And why did he sign the note with his last name? Olivia had never called him Fitz except during the moments of ecstasy they’d just shared—and even those whispers had been sacred. What did this distance mean?
Her heart trembled with doubt, yet somewhere beneath the confusion, a fierce determination took root. As soon as she was dressed, she promised herself she would find him at the hospital and demand answers.
But the day had other plans.
When Olivia arrived at George Washington University Hospital, the atmosphere was tense, crackling with urgent energy. A death row patient was being brought in for emergency treatment, and Abby immediately tasked Olivia with running labs, pulling her into a flurry of activity. The mission to find Fitz was swept up in the chaos.
She glimpsed him once—his scrub cap still perched on his head as he moved swiftly down the corridor, shadowed and unavailable. Did he turn to see her? Olivia’s mind skewed toward paranoia, but she chased the thought away. There was no time—and maybe no chance.
Her mind wandered incessantly to the night before, trying to process what had truly happened. It had been like a stranger had seized control of her body: a force, nameless and insistent, had led her from the locker room straight to his hotel room without hesitation. When Fitz’s door had creaked open, all the feelings she’d ever repressed surged into the room with her.
But it hadn’t been entirely perfect. There was that awful moment when Fitz seemed hesitant, as though an internal battle threatened to pull him back.
Her voice had faltered, a question full of desperation: “Come on, am I really so bad?”
Yet that vulnerability had broken his resistance, and suddenly Fitz was there, arms wrapping around her like an anchor. His lips moved sure and slow against hers—soft, coaxing, fire and ice intertwined.
In that moment, the seducer had become just as much the seduced.
Olivia marveled at how she had survived so long without falling into such exquisite perfection.
Heat had pooled between them as clothes had come off, kisses driving out doubt. When Fitz removed his shirt, revealing the lean strength beneath, Olivia had felt something unexpected—a feeling of beauty and worth illuminated by his gaze. He wanted her—her—not an imaginary ideal, not a trophy, but Olivia Pope, sister and daughter and long-forgotten friend made flesh.
Olivia,” he whispered as his fingers traced the story of her skin.
Tears sprang to her eyes, but she blinked them away and gazed at the man who was about to become part of her story.
There were no words adequate for something so pure.
When they collapsed together, a desperate symphony of bodies and breath, Olivia felt fragmented pieces of herself fall into place. Pleasure carved new paths through her, a kind of love she had only read about in books.
Fitz’s breaths came hard as he pressed into her, collapsing atop her, and she delighted in the weight of him.
I never knew…” she whispered.
Neither did I,” he replied.
Did they mean the same thing? Olivia pushed the thought away and kissed the curve of his shoulder.
The nights that followed weren’t filled with endless sleep. They woke often, searching for the other in starlit quiet, living a lifetime in the span of one single night.
This was why Olivia had to find Fitz now. The need to see him, to resolve the jagged edges of their intimacy, knotted tight in her chest.
Finally, as the day bled toward evening, she found him. He was washing his hands after surgery, the scrub cap still perched atop his hair, eyes steady but tired.
Hi there,” she said, soft smile blooming despite the swirl of nerves. “How did your surgery go? I bet it went well. You do everything well.”
Her face flamed bright red, the rush of words tumbling out. “I mean with surgery, with the cutting. You do that well—not that you don’t do other things well too…” A blush crept further down her neck, and she wished she had planned her approach.
Fitz’s eyes lingered on her, inscrutable, and then Olivia summoned courage.
About last night…”
Olivia—” His voice sliced through her thoughts like a sharp blade.
No one can know,” he said, eyes darkening. “In fact, it would be best if we pretended last night never happened at all. It was a mistake—pure and simple.”
The words landed with the force of a punch to the stomach, stealing the air from her lungs. She gasped, too stunned to see the turmoil etched behind his guarded expression.
What do you mean? You want to pretend last night never…”
Never happened," Fitz said, voice hard and low. "Olivia, no one can know about this. I am your teacher and that is all we have between us. We got carried away because the surgery went well, but that has to be it. Nothing else. We have to forget it.”
Was this how all the women who ever crossed Fitz Grant’s path felt afterward? The bitterness of rejection mingled with memory like a poison.
Olivia gripped the sink tightly, desperate not to let herself drown in the waves of memory assaulting her mind—his touch, his breath, the way the world had slipped away.
Do you know what it feels like to have an eidetic memory?” she asked, voice shaky. “To never, ever be able to forget the things you most want to erase?”
Fitz shook his head, silence hanging heavy between them.
It’s a curse,” Olivia whispered, looking up to meet his gaze. “Because sometimes the memories are all you have... and sometimes, they’re all you wish you didn’t.”
Fitz’s eyes softened, the armor faltering just a fraction.
I never meant to hurt you,” he said quietly. “I wanted you—more than I should have—but we have rules. Boundaries.”
But sometimes, boundaries aren’t strong enough,” she said, stepping closer, “especially when one night feels like forever.”
I know,” he said, voice barely audible. “But we have to be careful.”
Olivia swallowed the words trembling on her tongue—confessions she wasn’t ready to give just yet—and nodded.
We both have to be careful,” she agreed softly.
The hospital buzzed around them, indifferent to their fragile, tangled truths. Yet within that sterile space, somewhere beneath the weight of secrecy, a spark lingered, alive and waiting for the darkness to shift again.
The darkness that once was to be feared had instead become a place where a forbidden flame could burn, ever seductive, ever haunting.
And Fitz knew, deep in his bones, that this was only the beginning.
