Ana's POV
"It's not a question, Anastasia."
I should have said no.
But I laid there in the dark and looked up at him and heard every alarm I own going off at once.
The smart move was saying no. A woman who has just found taped-together money in a man's drawer doesn't pack her life into his penthouse two days later.
She steps back. She thinks. She protects herself.
I knew all of that.
And still, something in me leaned towards the word ‘stay’.
Because I had been alone for a long time. Longer than the marriage, longer than the club, longer than any of it.
I had been alone since I was a child staring at two coffins going into the ground, passed to a family friend who loved me in a tired, distracted way, working three jobs so no one could ever say I was a burden.
I had spent my w
