I woke to warmth I didn't recognize.
For a disoriented moment, I couldn't place where I was. The bed was wrong—too large, the sheets too soft, the light falling at an unfamiliar angle. And there was something else, something that had never been part of my mornings: an arm wrapped around my waist, a chest pressed against my back, the slow rhythm of someone else's breathing against my hair.
Then memory crashed back, and I went very still.
Last night. The library. The kiss that had shattered the last of my resistance. And then his bedroom, his hands, his body moving inside mine while I cried out his name like a prayer.
I'd slept with Vasily Chernov. My kidnapper. My captor. My husband.
I waited for the regret to hit—the crushing wave of shame and self-recrimination that should accompany such a spectacular lapse in judgment. I'd spent weeks fighting him, hating him, building walls against the confusing attraction that had been growing despite my best efforts.
And then I'd torn those walls down myself.
But the regret didn't come. Instead, I felt something more complicated: a bone-deep satisfaction I hadn't known I was capable of, tangled up with terror and confusion and a strange, tentative peace.
Vasily stirred behind me, his arm tightening around my waist. "You're thinking too loud," he murmured against my hair, his voice rough with sleep.
"How can you tell?"
"Your whole body went rigid." He pressed a kiss to my shoulder—soft, almost chaste, completely at odds with what we'd done in this bed hours ago. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong." It wasn't entirely a lie. "I'm just... processing."
He was quiet for a moment. Then he released me and rolled onto his back, giving me space I hadn't asked for but probably needed.
"Do you regret it?"
The question was careful, neutral. But I heard the tension underneath—the fear he was trying to hide.
I turned to face him, propping myself on one elbow. In the morning light, he looked different. Softer, somehow. The sharp angles of his face were gentled by sleep, his dark hair disheveled, his green eyes still heavy-lidded. He looked almost approachable. Almost human.
"No," I said, and meant it. "I don't regret it."
Something eased in his expression. "But?"
"But I don't know what it means. What we are now. What happens next?"
"What do you want to happen next?"
I laughed, the sound coming out slightly hysterical. "I don't know. That's the problem. A month ago, I had a life. A job, an apartment, a best friend who's probably convinced I'm dead by now. I knew who I was and what I wanted." I looked down at the ring on my finger, the diamond catching the light. "Now I don't know anything anymore."
Vasily reached out, his fingers brushing my cheek. The touch was gentle, questioning—so different from the iron grip of the man who'd dragged me from that alley.
"You know some things," he said quietly. "You know you're brilliant at your work. You know you're stronger than anyone gave you credit for. You know you're not the fragile, frightened woman who arrived on this island."
"I'm still frightened."
"Of me?"
I considered the question seriously. A week ago, the answer would have been an unequivocal yes. Now...
"No," I admitted. "Not of you. Not anymore."
"Then what?"
"Of this." I gestured between us, at the rumpled sheets, at the intimacy neither of us had planned. "Of what I'm becoming. I don't recognize myself anymore, Vasily. The woman who climbed into your bed last night—she's not who I was."
"Maybe she's who you're supposed to be."
