The morning after the ball carried a strange quiet, one Clara hadn’t expected. She had woken tangled in Nicholas’s arms, the city light bleeding pale gold through the curtains, softening the edges of the world. For once there was no urgency, no phone buzzing with emergencies, no sharp words to break the fragile spell between them. Just his steady heartbeat beneath her cheek, his breath warm against her hair.
She lay there longer than she should have, telling herself it was only exhaustion that kept her still. But the truth was harder to deny: she didn’t want to move. Not yet.
When he stirred at last, his hand flexing slightly against her waist, Clara pretended to still be asleep. It was childish, but she wanted to know what Nicholas Wolfe sounded like when he believed no one was listenin
