Rafael's POV
She was still asleep when I woke.
The room was dark, the kind of early morning dark that hadn't decided yet whether it was night or something else. Iris was pressed against my side, her breath warm and even on my chest, her curls spread across my arm. My shoulder was numb beneath her weight.
I didn't move.
I looked at the ceiling and listened to her breathe and felt the full weight of what I'd done settle over me like something I'd been waiting years to carry.
I should have felt worse about it than I did.
I did feel guilty. That part was real, the part that knew she was twenty and Chloe's best friend and that this was going to cost things I couldn't fully calculate yet. That part was loud and clear and had been there since the moment she knocked on my study door and sai
