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“I’m fine.”

“I made you coffee. It’s . . . gone a bit cold. I’ll make some fresh.”

“Sure.”

“Mols—”

“Please.” She couldn’t handle hearing cutesy nicknames. Couldn’t handle all this domesticity, Bishop toiling away grinding beans and measuring water. Couldn’t handle his expectant expression when he eventually placed a mug on the table for her.

Molly sat, conceding to a single cup of coffee in his presence.

She wouldn’t be called a coward.

She could, however, be called angry. That was a much easier emotion to inhabit than anything else at the moment.

“So, what kind of plans do you have for the day? Any other gross invasions of my privacy?”

Pawntès hopped back up onto the table. This time, Molly grabbed him and forced him into her lap.

Bishop went still. He sat ramrod straight, as if his spine had been fused in a vertical position by the sheer heat of his mood. Good. She remembered frustrated Bishop. This was a version of him she could handle.

“I shouldn’t have hesitated last night. This is—it’s the most impossible situation.” Every word looked like a struggle to produce. “But I’ll restore most of what I deleted from your phone. If you want me to.”

“Most?”

“There are some things that . . . I think need more time. To make sure it’s safe.”

“I’m not sure I care what you think.”

Bishop frowned.

Molly scowled.

Pawntès purred.

Voice tight, Bishop said, “Do you want me to restore the other stuff or not?”

Molly clutched her coffee. How had she willingly married this man? He was infuriating and obstinate and no better than he’d been as a teenager.

She opened her mouth, intent on saying, Yes, absolutely I want you to. You should never have touched it in the first place. But her voice caught.

Bishop’s jaw was clenched, whole body rigid, as he watched her with a tension in his eyes that begged her, silently, for a trust she had no reason to give. Fear gushed from him, an arterial bleed. That fear, more than anything else, gave her pause.

She couldn’t seem to verbalize her thoughts. Her own fears rose up in response to his, smothering her in an indecisive fog. After too much time had passed, she said, “Maybe . . . maybe later,” in a quiet voice.

Bishop’s relief was immediate and obvious. His gratitude worse than his frustration. “Thank you. And to answer your question, I have very few plans. I took some time off work.”

“You work?” Molly couldn’t help the incredulity in her tone. She hadn’t thought often of what Bishop might do with his academic aspirations. They’d mostly seemed like a hobby, a way to get under her skin at Laburnum. And she assumed his attendance at university was merely a formality within his social circles. It wasn’t as if he needed to work.

But if she had thought of Bishop’s professional life, she would have assumed it involved something vaguely wealthy and nebulously descriptive, a pseudo-role earned through nepotism at one of Bishop Logistics’s forty-some-odd subcompanies. Chief officer of something important but with little actual responsibility. She’d seen his dad once or twice during her time at Laburnum. They had a real “like father, like son” aesthetic going on.

“Yes, I work.”

She’d expected a quip or a snarl or something. She’d insulted him, at least implicitly. Insult adjacency.

“Huh,” Molly breathed. “Well, don’t take time off on my account. I’d like some alone time, honestly. I haven’t had any privacy for a week.”

Bishop didn’t respond.