Keir Moreau, a middle school teacher living a solitary life, is excited to welcome a handsome new neighbor. But after their first meeting goes alarmingly wrong, Keir decides it's safer to keep his distance. Besides, he has to focus all his attention on finding help for a student who is being forced into conversion therapy.<br><br>Riley Quinn used to be an award-winning photojournalist, roaming the world and exposing corruption. An injury put an end to all that. Now he's frustrated with his new aimless life, wondering if he'll ever do anything again that really matters. When he first meets Keir, a case of mistaken identity leads him to mistreat his intriguing new neighbor. Riley tries again and again to redeem himself, but everything he does seems to push Keir farther away.<br><br>Keir, obsessing about his failure to help his student and fighting his stubborn attraction to Riley, takes a reckless gamble that goes dreadfully wrong. Or does it? Can an act of desperation open the door to romance?

The Chartreuse Door

As his knees weakened, he lowered himself to the floor in a slow, shaky slide. That awful room. All that personal information so neat, so cold, all typed up like some kind of dossier. And those photos. Some ofthem taken through his windows.


Scuttling across the floor, he worked his way to the front wall. With a quick jerk, he pulled down the blind. Huddled on the floor beneath the window, he wrapped his arms around his knees and rocked back andforth, trying to stop long-buried feelings from clawing their way to the surface. This wasn’t the same. Just because he was running. And hiding. And being hunted. It still wasn’t the same.


Chapter 18