LOGINHer hands moved from my shoulders to my face, her palms cupping my jaw, her thumbs stroking my cheeks. It was a gesture of such unexpected tenderness it nearly undid me. Her eyes, dark and dazed, locked onto mine. In them, I saw not the woman I had wronged, but the woman I was with, in this moment,
Her hand anchored hard against the back of my head, fingers tangling in my hair, holding me exactly where she needed me. For a moment, I wasn't the man who had failed her. I was just a man giving her pleasure. She said my name once, twice, the third time broken completely, and her whole body arched
Edward's POV Her mouth was on mine when I got the door open. I walked her backward into the room, the city lights filtering through the window in thin strips that barely illuminated the space. Her hands were already at my collar, working open the buttons of my shirt with an urgency that sent a jol
Alicia's POV The restaurant Edmund had not arranged. Edward had seen it from the car on the second day and remembered it. No assistant. No agenda attached to the table. We walked there. He asked about Lily before we reached the first corner. "Is she still seeing the cardiologist every three mon
I ordered wine. The work wasn't finished. The room was quieter. She took the glass without comment. Drank. Set it down and kept writing. She spoke about the eastern corridor communities directly, without framing or adjustment, as if they existed in the room with us. Her hand moved as she talked, m
Edward's POV The door opened behind me. No knock. She came in already talking. "I need your numbers from Rotterdam before we fix anything else," she said. "The version you gave him assumes—" She stopped. I didn't turn immediately. Just reached for the towel, dragged it once over my face, then
Twenty minutes later, I was in my car, moving through Manhattan with no destination. That was a lie. I hadn’t planned it consciously, but my hands knew where they were going. Muscle memory. Habit. Instinct I hadn’t broken yet. Twenty-five minutes after leaving the estate, I pulled over half a blo
Alicia's POV The kitchen smelled like butter and warmth. I’d started baking before dawn, my hands working from memory. Rolling dough. Cutting circles. Lining them up on the sheets. The kind of work that kept my mind quiet. Elena sat at the counter with her laptop open, attention split between wh
Ending it was the right call. The only call. So why couldn't I make myself do it? I stood. Looked at my keys sitting on the entry table. I could go out. Do something. Anything was better than staying here spiraling. Except I didn't want to go anywhere. I wanted to drive to Elena’s apartmen
Alicia's POV Daniel closed the door to what he’d called his workspace, a room with floor-to-ceiling windows and a desk so pristine it looked like a showroom display. The tour had been brief. He didn’t linger or oversell it. "And that's it," he said, turning back toward me. "Not much to see, reall







