The house had never felt so full—kids laughing, shoes scattered in the hallway, the murmur of a TV playing somewhere in the background.
And yet somehow, it had never felt emptier.
Isabelle moved through the space like a shadow. Polished. Efficient. Smiling when the twins needed her. Nodding when Marcus made plans. But inside, she was retreating, folding in on herself like paper worn thin at the edges.
Since that afternoon on the porch—since that kiss—things had shifted.
Sebastian hadn’t said a word about it.
And neither had she.
But the tension hung in the air, thick and stale like a room with no windows.
They no longer moved around each other like two people cohabiting the same house—they moved like two people tiptoeing through a minefield.
If he walked into the kitchen, she walke
