I wake up to the smell of coffee and something cooking.
For a disorienting moment, I think I'm somewhere else. My father's house, maybe, or a hotel. Somewhere safe and normal where breakfast smells mean ordinary mornings instead of psychological warfare.
Then I remember where I am.
The confusion crashes back instantly, heavy and suffocating.
I've been hiding in this guest room for two days, trying to sort through the wreckage of my thoughts. Trying to separate what's real from what was manipulation, what I actually feel from what I was conditioned to feel. Trying to figure out if the woman who pushed Renato during those training sessions was me or just another performance.
I still don't have answers.
But I'm tired of being alone with my own spiraling thoughts. Tired of processing and analyzing and trying to make sense of something that might never make sense.
Maybe that's why I find myself padding downstairs in bare feet, drawn by the smell of coffee and the sound of something sizzling in a pan.
I stop in the kitchen doorway and freeze.
Renato stands at the stove, shirtless in grey sweatpants, his back to me as he works. His hair is damp from a recent shower, messy in a way that's completely unlike the controlled businessmanI've come to know. There's a grace to his movements. The kind of competence that comes from years of repetition.
He's actually cooking.
Not supervising staff, not having someone else prepare food. Actually, standing at a stove making breakfast with his own hands.
The domesticity of it all warms me more than it should.
I watch him crack eggs into a bowl, whisk them with what looks like cream, add herbs with the experience of someone who knows exactly what he's doing. His shoulders are tense despite the casual clothes, exhaustion evident in every line of his body.
He looks like he hasn't slept in days.
He also looks... good. Attractive in a way that has nothing to do with expensive suits or sexy charm. Just a man in his kitchen, hair messy, making breakfast.
I hate that I notice. Hate that my body responds to the sight of him even as my mind is still sorting through betrayal and manipulation and weeks of lies.
He pours the eggs into a heated pan, adjusting the temperature with the kind of attention most people reserve for important tasks. There's something almost meditative about his focus, like this simple act of cooking is the only thing keeping him grounded.
I wonder what he needs grounding from.
What's been keeping him awake.
Whether he's been as lost as I have these past two days.
"Good morning," I say finally.
He goes very still for just a moment before turning around. His dark eyes find mine across the kitchen, and I see somethingflash in them—relief, maybe, or hope, or just exhaustion finally catching up to him.
"Good morning." His voice is careful, neutral. "I made coffee. And extra eggs, if you're hungry."
"You cook?"
"When I need to." He turns back to the stove, giving me space to decide whether to stay or retreat. "The staff has the day off."
"You dismissed them?"
"Thought you might want privacy. Normal privacy, not the locked-door kind."
The distinction makes something twist in my chest. He's trying, in his own clumsy way, to give me what I asked for. Space and normalcy and the freedom to choose.
Even if every instinct he has probably screams to control the situation.
