ANNA'S POV
I stood in the office a long time after he left.
My hand was still warm from his jacket. My cheek still stung, faint, from a slap my own hand had given before I'd finished deciding to give it. The gala noise came through the window at the same volume it had carried for the last hour, indifferent to everything that had just happened in this room.
My wolf hadn't been indifferent, and that was the part I couldn't manage. She'd purred the whole way through it, nine years of evidence gone — no interest at all in the difference between a man reaching for something he'd lost and a man choosing it outright.
I picked up my bag. Straightened. Checked my reflection in the dark window glass, fixed what needed fixing, and walked back out into the corridor.
Ralph was near the gala exit w
