The house was quiet again.
Too quiet.
The kind of silence that didn’t soothe—it scraped.
Isabelle stood at the kitchen sink, staring blankly at the slow swirl of soap and water as she rinsed a coffee cup she hadn’t actually used. Her hands moved mechanically, but her mind was somewhere else. Everywhere else.
Sebastian’s hands.
His voice in the dark.
The way his breath had hitched when he touched her, like it meant something.
She braced her palms against the edge of the counter, trying to steady herself against the tide of memories rushing in. Her skin still remembered him. Her body had betrayed her, folding into his like no time had passed, like nothing had changed.
But everything had.
The shame hit hard.
It wasn’t just about Sebastian. It was about what she’d let happen—what she
