She read them again.
The handprint stays.
Three words. Eleven forty-seven at night. From a man who had spent approximately forty minutes across a desk from her making absolutely certain she understood that nothing personal would ever be entertained, implied, or pursued within the walls of his household.
The handprint stays.
Isla sat up slowly in bed.
She looked at the message. At the timestamp. At the name above it — Ronan Black, saved properly in her phone by Margaret with his direct number and a note that said emergencies only — and she thought very carefully about the fact that a flour handprint on a kitchen counter was not, by any reasonable definition, an emergency.
Which meant he had sent this for another reason entirely.
Which meant he had been thinking about it.
Which meant
