Rhea woke to gray morning light and the strange, disoriented certainty that she was not alone.
She sat up slowly, blanket sliding off her shoulder, and found Caden in the chair by her window, arms crossed, head tipped back against the wall, asleep in a way that looked more like a man who had lost a battle with exhaustion than one who had meant to rest. His jaw was shadowed with a night's stubble. His shirt was the same one he'd been wearing at the desk the night before.
He had stayed.
Not in her bed. Not even near it. But close enough that she understood, with a small jolt somewhere under her ribs, that he had not been able to make himself leave the room entirely.
She must have made some sound, because his eyes opened at once, silver and alert, the way a man's eyes open when he has tra
