ISLA
The kitchen was quiet. Early enough that the staff hadn’t arrived, late enough that the light through the east window had gone from grey to gold.
I made tea on autopilot – second cabinet, muscle memory now – and stood at the island and took inventory of how I felt.
Warm. That was the first thing.
Not the bond warm, not the pulled-tight awareness of him somewhere in the building. Something more internal than that.
Like something that had been braced for impact for a very long time had finally been allowed to put itself down.
He hadn’t pushed last night. Even when things had escalated, even when the distance between almost and completely had been nothing, he had let us pull back.
And in the aftermath, standing in my suite with my heart still hammering, he’d just looked at me a
