(Malia’s POV)
The first morning in Milan arrived like a drumbeat—steady, unavoidable. Light edged through the curtains in thin, arrogant bars, cutting across the bedroom like a reminder that I was somewhere foreign, that I had slept in a bed that wasn’t mine, that a lease with my name on it still sat on a polished table somewhere with ink barely dry.
I made coffee with hands that felt like someone else’s. The kettle’s whistle was too loud in the cavern of the suite, and every small sound seemed to echo—an intrusion in a place built for silence and perfect control.
Kieth’s suite was quiet. He wasn’t there when I padded into the living room, but his presence—his scent—was, like a shadow at the edge of my vision. The suite belonged to him in the way the air belonged to the gulf between nat
