Emma:
I lasted all of thirty seconds after Kaden walked away.
Thirty seconds of sitting perfectly still in that chair, breathing like a person who definitely wasn’t about to have a nervous breakdown. Thirty seconds of replaying his voice — For the record… I didn’t hate that kiss — on a loop that made my pulse trip over itself.
Then the adrenaline that had carried me this far just… evaporated.
My body slumped forward, forehead dropping to the edge of the table.
Oh no.
Not like a dramatic fainting spell. More like the world suddenly hit unpause and everything I’d been outrunning — pain, panic, exhaustion, trauma, the kiss, the plan, the fact that I had just agreed to live with him — came rushing in too fast.
My breathing stuttered.
The table blurred.
My ribs throbbed in painful, hot
