The fire settled into a steady burn, casting an amber glow across the room. The lodge transformed with evening's descent, taking on a quiet intensity that crept into every corner and settled along the walls. Violet felt that shift move through her body as though the room itself sensed the tension they struggled to contain.

She pressed her hands against the sofa cushion, anchoring herself to something solid. Bryan had stepped away to tend the fire, yet that small distance between them only amplified the current running through the room. Their silence wasn't evasion. It was architecture. Each moment stretched with deliberate purpose.

He returned to the sofa with that...