Ava’s POV
“I didn’t even notice it,” I said.
Corren turned fully toward me in the back seat of the Maybach. The privacy partition was already raised. The city moved past the tinted windows in a soft blur of glass and steel, but the inside of the car felt sealed off from everything else. His eyes moved over my face with slow, deliberate attention.
“You are lying to me,” he murmured.
“I swear I didn’t notice it.”
He didn’t answer right away. Instead he reached out and cupped my jaw, thumb resting just beneath my lower lip, holding my face steady so I had no choice but to meet his gaze. The air between us thickened. I could still smell his cologne, clean and expensive, mixed with the faint scent of the new clothes folded in bags at our feet.
Then he kissed me.
It was not soft. It was d
