EMMA
The penthouse was a hollowed-out ribcage of glass and broken dreams. The silence here wasn't the peaceful, insulated quiet we had cultivated in our "bubble"; it was the heavy, suffocating stillness of a crime scene.
I sat on the edge of the obsidian kitchen island, my bare legs dangling over the side. The marble was cold, but it didn't compare to the ice-water sludge that seemed to be pumping through my veins. Gabriel was gone. I had felt the distance between us stretch, then thrum, then finally steady into a long, aching pull as the Gulfstream tore through the clouds toward France.
He had left me the choice. The ultimate Alpha move—giving me back the autonomy he knew I was terrified of losing.
Choose the light, Emma.
I looked around the room. The "light" of my life in London was
