Kate's POV
The silence in the car was suffocating.
Damon drove with one hand on the wheel, his jaw tight, his usual effortless charm stripped clean. Whatever game he'd been playing at dinner, he'd dropped the mask the moment I shut him down, and now the air between us sat thick with all the things neither of us was willing to say.
When we reached my building, he walked me to the door. His eyes caught mine, dark and searching, and something flickered in them that I couldn't name. His hand rose, slow, reaching for a strand of hair near my temple.
I swiped my keycard before his fingers could touch me.
The lock clicked. The door swung inward.
And then every molecule in the hallway was swallowed by cedar and cold steel.
The apartment was pitch black. But in the faint glow bleeding throug
