ISABELLA
I don’t even know why I let him in. Maybe it was the flowers. Or the fact that he stood there, looking all wrong in this neighborhood, like a king who’d wandered into a garbage dump, and he was holding the damn flowers and a box, like some sorry excuse for an apology.
Maybe it was the way his knuckles brushed mine when I took the doorknob to close it behind him. Warm. Firm. Unfazed. Everything I wasn't.
He stepped inside with that easy arrogance he carried like cologne, something expensive and rare.
The air behind him changed, his cologne swirling into my lungs, something dark and smoky, like cedar wood burning slowly in winter.
It didn’t help, I still hated him. I hated the stupid way he made my heart slam into my ribs. I hated that his shoes didn’t even scuff the floor o
