The arrangement had settled into something dangerously comfortable by the middle of the following week. I was staying late almost every night now, telling Mark it was because of the looming deadline. He accepted it without much question — another sign of how far apart we’d grown. Jax would text me a simple “On your floor” when he was nearby, and I’d feel that familiar flutter low in my belly.

We still hadn’t crossed the full line again. It was all teasing — lingering conversations, his hand brushing mine when he handed me coffee, the way he’d stand just a little too close in the elevator. My body was constantly...