The next morning arrived too calmly.
Sunlight poured through the glass walls of the penthouse, soft and deceptive, as though the storm of the night before had never happened. No thunder. No darkness. No charged silence heavy with things left unsaid.
And yet, Seraphina woke with her heart still racing.
She lay still in bed, staring at the ceiling, replaying every second of the power outage—the brush of her fingers against Lucien’s chest, the way his voice had dropped, the warning in his eyes that felt less like control and more like struggle.
Do not mistake my restraint for indifference.
The words echoed, unsettling and intimate.
She pushed herself out of bed before her thoughts could spiral further and dressed quickly. Today was the board luncheon. Today, she would step into Lucien B
