Julian

The report arrived at 6:47 in the morning.

I was already awake. I'd been awake since four, sitting at my desk with cold coffee and a contract that should have had my full attention for the last two hours and hadn't received a single productive minute of it. I kept reading the same paragraph. The same clause about liability transfer and shareholder protections. Reading it and not absorbing any of it because somewhere in the back of my mind, underneath all the discipline I'd spent years constructing, I kept seeing Lena's hands.

The scars.

The way she always wore long sleeves even on warm days.

The way she flinched...