Her gaze shifted to the papers, then back to me. The faintest hesitation.
I’d come prepared.
She sighed but took the folder, flipping through passports, authorization letters, consular forms.
“Sit,” she said, tone clipped but lacking last night’s contempt. “I will inform administration.”
Progress.
I turned toward the waiting chairs?—
—and froze.
He sat two seats down.
I hadn’t noticed him when I walked in. He was leaning forward slightly, elbows on knees, one hand pressing a folded towel against his face. Dark hair. Broad shoulders filling out a worn black T-shirt beneath a leather jacket.
Wow.
Something about him felt … different.
Heavier.
Like the air bent around him.
He lifted his head at the sound of my footsteps.
And for a second, the room narrowed.
God.
He was beautiful in the way dangerous things often were—cut features, strong jaw shadowed with stubble, mouth set in a neutral line that somehow suggested both control and violence.A thin bandage stretched along his cheekbone where dried blood had seeped through.
But it was his eyes that held me.
Cool. Assessing. A stillness there that didn’t belong in waiting rooms.
He looked at me once, fully, then away.
Like he’d already cataloged everything he needed to know.
Heat flickered low in my stomach, sudden and disorienting.
Not grief. Not nostalgia. Awareness. Like, my body was incredibly, intrinsically aware of him. There was no denying that fact. I was … affected.
I would climb that man like a tree, if given the chance.
Mmm.
I sat two seats away, pulse unexpectedly quick.
What is wrong with you?
Your sister died. You’re at a clinic. Pull yourself together.
But my body didn’t seem interested in logic.
I could feel him without looking. The quiet presence. The coiled stillness of someone who never truly relaxed.
