BURNING BRIDGES

CHAPTER 5: The Morning After

Elena woke to gray light filtering through sheer curtains and the weight of Julian's arm across her waist. For a moment, she let herself pretend the last three years hadn't happened—that this was just another morning in their old apartment, before everything fell apart.

Then she moved, and her body reminded her exactly how thoroughly he'd reclaimed her territory.

"You're awake," he murmured, his hand sliding up to cup her breast.

"You're insatiable." But she arched into his touch, because apparently, so was she.

"For you? Always." He rolled her beneath him, settling between her thighs with practiced ease. "Last night was—"

"Too much talking," she interrupted, pulling him down for a kiss.

He laughed against her mouth, then made love to her slowly, thoroughly, until the morning light turned golden and she was crying his name again. After, they lay tangled, his fingers tracing patterns on her hip.

"I have a meeting at ten," he said reluctantly. "But I want you here when I get back."

"I have a job, Julian. The restoration—"

"Can wait one day." He propped himself on an elbow, suddenly serious. "I'm not asking for forever, Elena. Just today. Let's see if we can still exist in the same space without destroying each other."

It was a reasonable request. It was also a trap—she knew it, felt it in the way he watched her calculate her answer. But the alternative was walking away again, and her heart couldn't survive that twice.

"One day," she agreed. "But then we establish boundaries. Professional during business hours, personal after. No mixing, no complications."

His smile suggested he knew exactly how impossible those terms would be to keep. "Whatever you say, Ms. Voss."

They spent the day in his bed, ordering room service, talking between rounds of lovemaking that grew increasingly inventive. He told her about the years she'd missed—the close calls with former associates, the deals that nearly broke him, the therapy he'd started after realizing he couldn't outrun his past.

She told him about her father's death, the struggle to keep Voss afloat, the dates she'd forced herself through, trying to forget him.

"Did you love any of them?" he asked, his hand stilling on her thigh.

"No." She turned to face him. "Did you?"

"There was no one else, Elena. Not seriously. I compared every woman to you, and they all came up lacking."

The confession should have comforted her. Instead, it terrified her. "Julian, we can't just pick up where we left off. Too much has changed."

"Then we'll start fresh." He kissed her shoulder. "But I'm not letting you go again. Whatever it takes, whatever you need to trust me. I'll do it."

She wanted to believe him. God, she wanted to. But as evening fell and reality crept back in, she felt the familiar panic rising. This was how it started before—the all-consuming passion, the world narrowing to just him, the loss of everything else that mattered.

"I should go," she said, sliding from the bed.

"Elena—"

"I need to think. Please." She dressed quickly, not meeting his eyes. "I'll see you at the site tomorrow. Professional, remember?"

He didn't stop her, but she felt his gaze burning into her back as she fled, carrying her clothes and her confusion and the terrifying certainty that she'd already fallen too far to climb back out.