Victoria had taken an overnight trip for a client presentation. The knowledge sat in the house like an open door. Elena found Marcus in the study after dark, the single desk lamp casting a low circle of light across the papers he was not reading. He looked up when she entered. She locked the door behind her without being asked.
For a while they only looked at each other. The new weight of the words they had both spoken still hung in the air between them, denser than the earlier heat of the affair. Elena crossed the room and sat on the edge of the desk, close enough that her knee brushed his thigh. Marcus’s hand settled there, warm and steady.
“I’ve been thinking about what happens next,” she said.
His thumb stroked once along the inside of her knee. “Tell me.”
Elena stared at the dark
