"Couldn't sleep?"
Kristen's head snaps up. The pen falls from her hand, clattering against the floor. For a split second, fear flashes across her features.
Then she registers it's me, and the fear shifts to exhaustion. A flicker of that stubborn defiance she wears like armor.
"You move too quietly for someone your size," she says. Her voice comes out rough. Sleep-deprived.
"Force of habit." I push off the doorframe and cross toward her, stopping at the arm of the sectional. Close enough to read the book's spine. "What are you reading?"
She doesn't answer immediately. Just watches me. Deciding how much of herself to reveal.
I wait. Patience isn't my strong suit, but for her, I find it.
"Emergency medicine," she finally says. "Trauma protocols. Advanced cardiac life support." She touches the book's cover almost reverently. "I've been reading medical texts since I was nineteen. Whenever I had time. Whenever I could afford a new one."
The words land like a confession. Like she's handing me something fragile and expecting me to crush it.
"You wanted to be a doctor."
"I wanted to help people." She looks down at the book, her fingers tracing the embossed title. "Lily's surgery changed things. Jack changed things. But I never stopped reading. Couldn't. It's the only thing that's ever been mine."
Jesus Christ.
This woman spends her nights studying medicine she'll probably never get to practice.
Not because someone's making her. Not because there's a reward waiting at the end.
Because it's hers.
I've seen beautiful women. I've had beautiful women. But I've never wanted anyone the way I want Kristen Thomas right now, with her tired eyes and her pajamas and her goddamn medical textbook.
Why the hell does this make me want her more?
I know the answer. I just don't like it.
Because she's not broken. She's bent by circumstances, by poverty, by a man who tried to crush everything good in her. But she's not broken. She's still fighting. Still dreaming. Still hers.
And I want to be the one who gives her back everything that was taken.
"You're exhausted." My voice comes out rougher than intended. "You should sleep."
"Can't." She shrugs one shoulder. "Brain won't stop."
I understand that better than she knows.
Kristen
My eyes burn from staring at the same paragraph about traumatic hemorrhage for the past twenty minutes, but closing this book feels like admitting defeat.
This is relaxing, I remind myself. Normal people watch TV. You read about blood loss.
Nico hasn't moved from the doorway. I can feel him watching me, that intense focus that makes my skin prickle with awareness even when I'm pretending to ignore him.
"Do you need tea or something?" The words tumble out before I can stop them. Hostess instincts die hard, apparently. "I could make?—"
His laugh cuts me off. Low, rough, genuinely amused. "I don't drink tea."
"Ever?"
