Ronda did not sleep well.
Not because the room was too hot. Not because the fan sounded like it might stop and die before dawn. Not even because the city outside refused, as always, to become quiet enough for a woman’s thoughts to rest.
She didn’t sleep because Karl’s words would not leave her.
Love was no longer asking only to be felt.
Now it was asking whether she, too, was willing to stand.
That was the part she had been trying to avoid.
Not feeling him. She had already lost that battle honestly.
Not wanting him. That, too, had become too real to insult with denial.
No.
What she had been avoiding was herself. What she would do with the truth now that it had grown too large to fit inside private ache.
All this time, Karl had been the one stepping forward. Karl asking. Karl admi
