We hadn’t mapped this out; there was no grand design in our meeting. No elegantly arranged bottles of red wine on a polished table, no hushed melodies weaving through the air from high-end speakers. Just a heavy silence, thick with unspoken words.
Tension crackled between us, the kind that builds over time when you’ve shouldered the weight of everything for far too long. When Rafael finally stepped through the doorway, he didn’t utter a single word. He simply let his coat slide from his shoulders, his tie loosened as if it were a noose, and his gaze locked onto mine with a frantic need for air that we had both been deprived of for too long.
At that moment, I realized I felt the same despair. My body was running on the barest essentials—caffeine coursing through my veins, as fury simmer
