Kairo stayed seated after she left.
He hadn’t missed a thing. Not the sharpness in her breath when the paper slipped. Not the way her hand darted under the table with unnatural speed. Not the little deflection laugh she gave afterward.
It wasn’t the paper itself that concerned him. He hadn’t seen the words, didn’t know what she was hiding. But her reaction spoke louder than any proof.
Secrets.
She had them.
Instead of anger, Kairo felt something else coil in his chest — a strange satisfaction. For weeks, he had suspected there was more behind Arielle’s compliance, more behind the way she tried so hard to fit into this life without a misstep. He had seen the cracks: the faraway look in her eyes, the hesitations that lasted a beat too long, the subtle stiffness when she thought he wasn’
