Not mine. His. The sheets smelled like him: that same cologne mixed with something warmer, something that felt like home in a way I didn’t have the luxury of understanding. Sunlight was streaming through the windows, and for one blessed moment before consciousness fully arrived, I didn’t remember anything. Didn’t remember the mistakes or the threats or the way I’d broken down in his car.
Then it all came rushing back, and the shame was suffocating.
I was still wearing yesterday’s clothes, though someone—Drew, presumably—had removed my shoes and unbuttoned my shirt further for comfort. My mouth tasted like whiskey and regret. My head was pounding with the kind of intensity that suggested my body was launching a personal vendetta against my brain.
The door opened, and Drew appeared with two glasses of water and what looked like aspirin. He had that careful, gentle expression that suggested he was handling someone fragile, and I wanted to tell him that I wasn’t fragile. That I was strong and capable and could handle my own shit without dissolving into tears like some traumatized orphan.
Except Iwasa traumatized orphan, and I had just dissolved into tears, and pretending otherwise seemed pointless at this stage of the game.
“I didn’t know where you lived,” Drew said, handing me the water and the aspirin. “So I brought you here.”
That was somehow worse than any accusation could have been. The fact that he’d thought of that, that he’d recognized I needed to be safe somewhere, that he’d been gentle enough not to force me to relive last night while I was actively dying of a hangover.
“I shouldn’t have—”
“No,” he interrupted, settling onto the edge of the bed. “You shouldn’t have been hiding away and drinking alone in the office while you’re clearly falling apart. But we’re not doing this right now. Right now, you’re going to take the aspirin, drink the water, and sleep. We’ll talk later.”
I wanted to argue. Wanted to maintain some semblance of control by refusing his help and his gentleness and his infuriating assumption that he could just fix this by being decentto me. But honestly, I was too hungover to manage more than the bare minimum of functioning.
I took the aspirin. Drank the water. Didn’t protest when he pulled the covers up around me like I was something precious instead of something poisoned.
For the first time in my entire life—growing up in the orphanage with nothing, working in Seattle bars while dodging grabby hands, years of perfect performance and calculated survival—I felt utterly exposed. No armor. No performance. No carefully constructed version of myself designed to survive in a hostile world.
And somehow, impossibly, that vulnerability felt safer than any shield I’d ever built.
Drew stood to leave, and I caught his wrist before I could stop myself.
“Stay,” I said, and the word was barely a whisper. “Please.”
He didn’t hesitate. Just kicked off his shoes, slid into bed beside me, and pulled me against his chest with the kind of careful tenderness that made me want to weep all over again. His hand found my hair, his fingers stroking through the tangled strands in a hypnotic rhythm.
“I’ve got you,” he said again, like a promise. Like a prayer. Like something he was willing to stake his life on.
I buried my face against his neck and let myself believe it, even though I knew better. Even though I knew that the moment he found out about Vance, about my mission, about the files I’d been stealing and the intelligence I’d been selling, all of this would burn.
For now, in the darkness of his bedroom with his arms around me and his heartbeat steady against my ear, I could pretend that maybe, somehow, it might not.
The illusion wouldn’t last. I knew that much. In this world, nothing good ever lasted.
But for these few hours, wrapped in the safety of his presence, I would let myself dream of a life where I could be both the girl in his arms and the woman with a mission. Where I didn’t have to choose between redemption and revenge, between the man holding me and the father I’d lost.
Where I could just be Cassandra, and that was enough.
The sun moved across the sky. Drew’s breathing evened out into sleep. And I stayed awake, memorizing the feel of him, the scent of him, the weight of his arms around me—storing it all up like I was preparing for a winter that would never end.
Because I knew, with the kind of absolute certainty that came from years of survival, that this was temporary. That everything good in my life had an expiration date.
I was just waiting for this to reach its end.
Chapter 7 – Drew
I sat at the edge of my bed with my face buried in my hands, trying to reconcile the woman sleeping behind me with the one I thought I’d been getting to know over the past few weeks.
Cassandra was curled up on her side, one arm tucked under her pillow, her breathing deep and even in the way of someone who’d exhausted themselves completely. The morning light caught the planes of her face, softening edges that were usually sharp as broken glass. Without the armor of her performance, without the calculated distance she maintained between herself and the rest of the world, she looked younger. Vulnerable. Raw.
I’d never seen her like that before. Not in the office, not at the club, not during any of the moments we’d shared. She’d always maintained perfect control, perfect distance, like letting anyone see the truth of her might dissolve some essential part of her survival instinct.
Until last night, when she’d let it all crack open in my car.
