Yeah. I could stay like this forever.
I press my lips to the top of her head and just breathe for a minute.
She shifts again, lashes fluttering against my chest. Something like relief flickers across her face before she shutters it, sitting up slowly and dragging the sheet with her. My arm falls away and immediately misses her.
“How was the game?” she asks, voice scratchy with sleep.
“We lost,” I tell her, though it was in the text. “But it’s okay. We’ll get them next time.”
Her mouth curves as if to smile, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “You always say that.”
“I always mean it.”
She swings her legs over the side of the bed, and that’s when I see it.
The velvet box on my dresser.
Small. Black. Expensive-looking.
Not mine.
My brain clicks from sleep-fogged to sharp in a heartbeat.
I push up on an elbow. “What’s that?”
She freezes midway to standing, follows my gaze, and goes very, very still.
“That,” she says finally, voice flat, “is a problem.”
Ice slides down my spine. I throw my legs over the side of the bed and sit up fully.
“Kat,” I say quietly. “Talk to me. I could feel something was wrong last night, but I didn’t want to push.”
She stays there for a beat, shoulders tight, breathing shallow, then stands and crosses the room. Fingers trembling just enough that I notice, she picks up the box and turns, holding it between us like evidence.
“He came last night,” she says.
“Who did?”
Her eyes meet mine, stormy and resigned all at once.
“Maxim.”
The name hits me like a punch. My jaw clenches. The fiancé her father picked. The walking arranged-marriage contract who’d be more than happy to chain her to a life she doesn’t want.
I stand up too. “He was here? In Seattle?”
“At the theater,” she says. That alone tells me how badly it rattled her; she doesn’t call it “the hall” or “the stage” like usual. Just… the theater. “He was at my opening. My dressing room after the performance.”
My hands curl into fists thinking of him being that close to her. “Did he touch you?”
Her eyes flash, offended and almost amused through the tightness. “Not like that. He knows better. But he brought… these.” She jerks her chin toward the box. “And roses.”
I frown. “You hate roses.”
“Exactly.” Her mouth twists. “They remind me of my mother’s funeral. But that’s just the point. Our families have run in thesame circles for years, and yet he doesn’t know the first thing about me.”
A muscle jumps along my jaw. “What did he say he wanted?”
