The office was quiet, but not in the usual way. There was a weight in the air, heavy and suffocating, that made Bella’s skin prickle. She sat at her desk, hands clasped around her coffee cup, staring blankly at the screen. Nothing on it registered—emails, spreadsheets, the usual flood of tasks—all of it blurred together.
Damien hadn’t come in yet. That in itself was unusual. After last night, she had expected him to sweep in with that smoldering confidence, that dangerous grin that always left her heart hammering. But the office was silent, the kind of silence that made her uneasy, like the calm before a storm.
Her mind kept replaying the night before—the way his hands had held her, the heat of his lips on her skin, the raw, possessive way he had claimed her. She had never imagined surre
