Elle's POV
I stepped into the newsroom, the familiar hum of activity surrounding me like white noise. Conversations, phone calls, the soft clatter of keyboards—all the usual chaos that normally grounded me. But today, it only made me more anxious. As I walked through the aisles, weaving past coworkers, I kept glancing over my shoulder, half-expecting Josh to walk in or worse, his men.
The pit in my stomach twisted tighter. I couldn’t shake the feeling that he wasn’t done with me yet.
But then my thoughts drifted back to the weekend—the way Mason’s arm had felt around me, how he made everything seem like it would be okay. He had this way of creating a bubble around us, like nothing bad could touch me as long as he was there. I wished things were different between us. I wished they weren
