The door closed behind her.
Daniel didn’t drive off immediately.
His hands rested lightly on the steering wheel, his gaze fixed on the entrance of Amelia’s building long after she disappeared inside. The quiet stretched, thick and deliberate, wrapping around him like something familiar.
Then.
He exhaled.
And just like that, something shifted.
The softness in his expression faded first. Then the patience. The careful restraint he had worn all evening unraveled piece by piece until there was nothing left but something colder. Sharper.
Real.
Daniel leaned back in his seat, one hand dragging slowly down his face before settling at his jaw. His fingers pressed there briefly, as if grounding himself.
“Alexander,” he murmured under his breath.
The name didn’t sound foreign.
It hadn’t f
