Delilah's Pov

The fire in the hearth had burned down to soft, glowing embers. Shadows swayed across the walls like restless ghosts, and the air carried the faint scent of smoke and something darker, the kind of silence that settles only when two people stop pretending.

Verret sat at the edge of the bed, bare-chested, the blanket pooled around his waist. I sat beside him, wrapped tightly in the same fabric, my hair a tangled mess against my neck.

For a long time, neither of us spoke.

I didn't know what to say. My pulse was still a little wild, my mind even more so. But what startled me most...