ELORA

I sank into my chair with a weight heavier than exhaustion. My fingers clenched around the arms of the leather seat, trying to keep my composure.

The conversation, or rather the shutdown, I’d just had with Rowen lingered in the air like cheap perfume. Suffocating. Confusing. Cold.

One minute he was listening, almost tender in that maddening way he did, and the next, he had turned icy, brushing off my concern like I had crossed some unspoken line.

I had only wanted to know more. About him. About the man whose shadow I worked under. The man whose moods changed faster than New York weather.

The man who stared...