~Selene's POV~
Caden arrives at the usual hour, and Selene meets him in the hallway before he has even fully stepped through the door, speaking before he can settle into the visit the way he normally does.
"I know about the ultimatum," she says. "Rhys told my mother."
He stops where he is, just inside the threshold, something shifting briefly across his face before he settles it back into the careful stillness he has learned to bring to these conversations. "I wasn't going to ask you to—"
"I know you weren't," she says. "That's why I'm bringing it up myself, before you have a chance to decide whether you would have asked or not."
He waits, watching her, the way he has learned to wait through these conversations without rushing to fill the silence with reassurance she hasn't actually a
