LOGIN*Liam's POV*"Damn."I walked straight to the bed.Grabbed my pillow.Grabbed my duvet.And walked right back out.I didn't look at Andrea when I passed her. I didn't need to. I could feel the shock radiating off her like heat.... the sharp, disbelieving silence of a woman who had never once in her life had that particular plan fail. I pulled the door shut behind me with a soft, satisfying click.And then I smiled.All the way down the hallway, I smiled.I didn't even know where I was going. That was the honest truth. I was standing in my own corridor at what, one in the morning? holding a pillow and a duvet like a man who had just been evicted from his own bedroom, with nowhere to be and no real plan.My feet stopped outside Elena's door.I stared at it.Why am I here?I genuinely could not answer that question. There were eleven other guest rooms in this house. Eleven perfectly good, perfectly empty, perfectly available rooms with beds in them. I knew where all of them were. I had
*Liam's POV*I was tired.Genuinely, honestly tired, the kind of tiredness that comes from laughing too much and staying up too late and having the unexpected pleasure of watching Elena Thompson dismantle Andrea with two sentences and a smile before calmly stealing back a bag of pretzels.I climbed the stairs with that still sitting warm in my chest, said a brief goodnight to nobody in particular, and walked into my room.The door clicked shut behind me.Then I heard the lock turn.I froze.Immediately, I turned around.Andrea stood with her back against the door, her hands were still on the lock, looking at me with an expression I recognized immediately and had absolutely zero interest in engaging with tonight."Andrea." My voice came out flat. "What are you doing?"She didn't answer with words.She crossed the room directly, purposefully, with no hesitation and before I could step back she had both my hands in hers and pressed them firmly against her chest.I pulled back immediately
**Liam's POV** Andrea's voice hit the kitchen like a bucket of cold water. I stepped back. Elena stepped back. The pretzel bag hit the counter. And just like that, whatever that moment was, whatever had been building in the three inches of air between us ... evaporated completely. I could have strangled Andrea. Calmly. Quietly. With a smile on my face. "What is going on here?" she repeated, her eyes were moving between us slowly, like she was collecting evidence. I cleared my throat and looked at her. "What are you doing in the kitchen at this hour?" Andrea tilted her head, one hand resting on the doorframe, completely unbothered. "I think I should be the one asking that question, actually. Both of you. Together. In the dead of the night." A small smile escaped her lips. "Very interesting." "We were getting snacks," Elena said. "Mm." Andrea looked at her. "Is that what we're calling it?" "It is what it is," I said flatly. "You still haven't answered me. Why are you down here
*Elena's POV*It started with pickles.Well ... pickles and peanut butter and whatever those little chocolate-covered pretzels were that I had spotted in the pantry three days ago and had been thinking about ever since. Don't judge me. I was growing a human being. My cravings had their own personality at this point.I waddled down the stairs at half past midnight, one of my hand on the railing, wearing an oversized sleep shirt and the kind of dignity that only a pregnant woman raiding a kitchen at night could possess.The kitchen light was already on.I froze in the doorway.Liam was standing at the counter in shorts and no shirt ... which, fine, was an entirely unnecessary detail that my brain chose to register and file immediately, while he hold a glass of water. Very innocently. Very suspiciously innocently.We stared at each other."What are you doing down here?" I asked."Getting water." He lifted the glass. Proof."At midnight.""People drink water at midnight, Elena.""Uh huh."
**Alexander's POV** "Eliza!" My keys were already in my hand. I didn't think or breathe. I immediately moved , scooping her off the floor, ofcourse the shattered glass crunching beneath my knees. Her blood was warm and wet against my hands, and my shirt. Her head lolled against my chest and something inside me cracked so wide open I couldn't even feel the edges of it. "Stay with me," I said. My voice didn't sound like mine...it was desperate this time. "Eliza, stay with me." I carried her to the car. Laid her across the back seat as gently as I could with my hands that wouldn't stop trembling. I pressed my jacket against the back of her head and held it there with one hand while I drove with the other, running every red light, every stop sign, my foot was totally flat against the accelerator. She was so still. Too still and that deepened my regret. "You're going to be fine," I told her, even though she couldn't hear me. "You hear me? You're going to be fine. I've got you."
*Alexander's POV*The glass was empty again.I stared at it for a long moment, then slid it across the bar without a word. The bartender refilled it without being asked. Smart man. I wasn't in the mood to talk. I wasn't in the mood for anything, honestly. I just wanted to sink slowly and let the alcohol pull me all the way under."She loved me," I muttered, pressing two fingers hard against my temple. "She actually loved me."The bar was alive around me. Music. Laughter. The clinking of glasses. Everyone celebrating something I couldn't see and didn't care about. The whole world was spinning forward, and I was stuck frozen in one moment, one name I couldn't stop saying inside my head.Elena."And I threw it all away." I laughed at my own glass. A broken, hollow sound. "I threw her away."I downed the whiskey in one go and pushed the glass forward again."Another," I said."Sir, perhaps you've had enough...""Another." I didn't raise my voice. I didn't need to.He poured.You chose El







