Chapter: COLD SHOWERSENOCHEnoch stood by the bed too long.Anna was already asleep again judging by her slow breathing, dark hair spread across the pillow like silk. He watched her chest rise and fall. Felt a dangerous twist in his gut.Dearest.The word she'd murmured against his shoulder still burned. For one moment in the dark hallway, he'd almost believed she knew who held her. That she wanted him to.He left before he did something unforgivable.The shower ran ice cold.Six years. That's how long he'd tried not to want her. Since her nineteenth birthday. She had been in a yellow dress that caught his attention like fire. Since he'd walked into his aunt's house, hed known that he was in serious trouble.She'd been laughing with her head tilted back. He'd stopped walking mid stride. Twenty-four years old and suddenly capable of nothing but staring at his cousin.He'd spent the years pretending it wasn't real. Sent birthday gifts. Avoided family gatherings. Built a company and told himself that was en
Dernière mise à jour: 2026-03-12
Chapter: LUXURY KNEW HER NAME AGAINANNAEnoch left twenty minutes later. Anna spent the next hour doing nothing.She made more coffee. Stared out the window. Sat on the couch and scrolled her phone without reading anything.Then she wandered around like she was in a museum, touching his things while she imagined she was touching him. The books on the shelf were way more novels than she expected. She saw photos from family events, none with her in them.She looked at the view from every window. Then decided to unpack.Her suitcase sat in the corner, untouched. She opened it and stared at the clothes she'd thrown in during her panic-packing. Just looking at them made her tired.But the wardrobe was right there. It'd be rude not to use it.She pulled the doors open."Oh my God," she whispered.It wasn't empty. It was full.Dresses in silk, linen and soft wool hung in rows with colors that made her breath catch. Blouses on one side. Trousers on the other. A whole section of casual clothes that looked like clouds.Below th
Dernière mise à jour: 2026-03-12
Chapter: LUXURY KNEW HER NAME FIRSTANNAThe first thought that surfaced through the fog of sleep was that she was lying on something so soft and so expensive that it felt illegal to exist here without a signed contract and a credit check.She stretched both arms out, then rolled over and screamed into the pillow. Not a dignified twenty-five-year-old woman scream. A little kid scream.She was here. Actually here. In London. In Enoch's apartment.Anna kicked her legs under the duvet, grinning like an idiot. Then she rolled the other way because the sheets felt too good not to. She gave herself sixty seconds of pure, stupid happiness. When she finished, she sat up and looked around.The guest room with cream walls and dark wood furniture was bigger than her entire old apartment. Everything was in the right place. Through the gap in the curtains, she could see buildings climbing toward a grey sky.She padded to the window and pulled the curtains open."Oh," she breathed.The grand city spread out before her full of poss
Dernière mise à jour: 2026-03-12
Chapter: AIRPORT BEAUTYANNACheck-in was quick. Security was slower but manageable. By the time she reached her gate, she had forty minutes until board. She found a seat near the window and sat and watched planes take off and land and told herself she still wasn't scanning the crowd.She pulled out her phone and opened her notes' app. The list she'd started on Saturday night, drunk and heartbroken on her bathroom floor. It was stupid and petty and exactly what she needed.Beautiful men she intended to date.She scrolled through the names of her old friends and acquaintances and felt the absurdity of it. This was ridiculous, she thought. But just the right amount of ridiculousness she needed. The list was supposed to be honest. That was the whole point. She was done being practical about men, done pretending she didn't want what she wanted. If what she wanted was a man she couldn't have, a man who was her cousin, then the list should reflect that.She saved the entry and put the phone away.The gate area wa
Dernière mise à jour: 2026-02-23
Chapter: STRAIGHT TO THE AIRPORTANNAAnna had been awake for hours before the sun finally appeared. She'd lain in the dark listening to Maya's steady breathing from the couch and had taken in every sound of the apartment. The refrigerator's hum. The faint traffic from the street below. The way the floorboards creaked near the door.She was saying goodbye to it before she'd even gotten out of bed.She gave up on sleep and made coffee. She showered and by eight A.M. She stood in the center of the living room with her single suitcase and her carry-on and looked at what remained. The boxes for storage, the leaving pile would go to donation, and the furniture that belonged to the apartment would stay exactly where it was for the next person.Maya appeared in the doorway of the bedroom, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, her hair spiked up in different directions. She looked at Anna standing in the middle of the room and said nothing for a long moment."That's it?" she finally asked."Yeah." Anna looked at the suitca
Dernière mise à jour: 2026-02-23
Chapter: THE PACKINGANNAAnna stood in the center of her living room with the box from the office still in her arms and realized she had nowhere to put it down because every surface was already covered with the debris of five years she was supposed to be dismantling. She set it on the floor instead. The cactus went on the windowsill where it belonged, rescued from Mia's territorial rearrangement, and she stood there for a moment with her hand on the pot and thought about how strange it was that a plant had been the thing that finally made her angry.Not the affair. Not the lies. A cactus. Moved to a windowsill like it was nothing.She shook her head, and then sat down on the floor because standing suddenly felt like too much, and she let herself have exactly five minutes of doing nothing.When the five minutes were up, she stood, changed into clothes that could get dirty, and started.The kitchen first, because it was the easiest. Dishes she didn't care about went into the leaving pile. The good ones, th
Dernière mise à jour: 2026-02-23
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