Page 108 of Reign

When she crosses behind me, she passes close enough for her fingers to brush the back of my hand.

The kitchen gives her several feet of room. She chooses the path beside me.

“Thank you,” she says.

Her voice is quiet, softened by a sincerity she usually buries beneath a smart remark. Her fingers have already left my hand, but the warmth of them lingers.

“You’re welcome.”

A blush spreads across her cheeks before she turns toward the island. She settles onto the stool beside me and begins eating, her shoulders looser than they were yesterday. She doesn’t track every movement in the kitchen or glance toward the doorway when someone enters.

The change is slight, but I feel it in the ease of the room. She’s no longer moving through my house like she expects someone to tell her she doesn’t belong here.

I drink my coffee beside her while she sketches between bites, and for the first time since she arrived, the morning feels less like an arrangement.

It feels like ours.

By Wednesday, her notebook has begun moving through my house like evidence.

The living room. The terrace. The kitchen island. Once, the staircase, where she stopped halfway down to sketch the curve of the banister and then tried to conceal the page when I passed.

I come home from a meeting and find her curled into the corner of the sofa with one leg tucked beneath her. Pencil smudges mark her fingers, and the purple throw is pulled over her lap.

“Hi,” she says when I enter.

It’s the first time she’s greeted me before I’ve greeted her.

“Hello, princesa.”

The warmer answer earns me a quick smile before she hides it in her notebook. I catch it anyway, along with the color rising beneath her skin.

A few minutes later, she tugs the throw higher and tucks her bare toes beneath the edge.

I raise the thermostat two degrees before going upstairs.

I have Marisol place another purple throw in Elena’s room. Same color. Softer fabric.

Her inevitable annoyance only makes it better.

Later that night, I open Elena’s questionnaire in my office, though I’ve already memorized every answer.

This time, they read in her voice.

I hear suspicion in the questions she added, defiance in every emphatic yes, and embarrassment in the careful explanations she probably rewrote three times before submitting. I can picture the crease between her brows as she decided how honest she was willing to be—and the blush when honesty won.

The questionnaire felt intimate when I first read it. Now it feels like she’s sitting across from me, arguing each answer while waiting to see what I’ll do with it.

By the time I reach the end, I’m not thinking about whether Elena belongs at Elite.

I’m thinking about how she’d look if I taught her myself.

I get very little work done after that.

By Thursday, I realize the suitcase she arrived with is still the only luggage she has.

I notice because she asks Marisol whether the laundry room has extra hangers and explains that most of her clothes are being held until her apartment is ready.

She says it kindly, treating the missing belongings as a minor inconvenience instead of another portion of her life sitting somewhere beyond her reach.