Vivian woke to the smell of coffee.
For a moment, she didn't know where she was. The bed was too large, the sheets too soft, the light filtering through the curtains too golden and wrong. Then she felt the empty space beside her—still warm, still holding the shape of a body—and she remembered.
Julian's penthouse.
Julian's bed.
Julian, who was apparently already awake and making coffee like a functional human being while she lay here in his shirt, tangled in his sheets, trying to remember when exactly she had stopped being a professional and started being... this.
She sat up slowly. The clock on the nightstand read 7:14 a.m. She had slept for nearly six hours—more than she had slept in any single night since taking this case. The realization was unsettling.
She found her clothes from
