The city felt quieter that night.
Or maybe it was just that everything inside me had grown louder.
I didn't go back to my hostel. I didn't want fluorescent hallway lights and thin mattresses and whispered gossip bleeding through walls. I wanted stillness. I wanted clarity. I wanted him.
Julian didn't suggest it outright. He never did. He simply said, "Come upstairs," in that calm, measured voice that somehow held both authority and invitation.
His penthouse occupied the top floor of the same building. Of course it did. Julian Thorne did not separate life from empire. Everything he owned stacked upward — controlled, structured, elevated.
The elevator ride was silent, but not awkward. His hand rested at the small of my back, steady and grounding. Not possessive. Not hesitant.
Just ther
