You came here by choice. That is the part you keep repeating to yourself, because choice feels safer than fear.
For a year, Ethan Cole had been the calmest man you had ever known.
He was thirty-eight, polished without looking arrogant, careful with his words, patient in a world that always seemed to interrupt you before you finished a sentence.
You met him at the financial consulting firm where you worked in client relations, and from the beginning he was different from the men who mistook politeness for a transaction. He listened. He remembered details.
He never crowded you, never flirted in that slick, rehearsed way that made your skin tighten.
He simply became a place your mind kept returning to.
That was how it started. Α coffee after a late meeting. Then another.
Conversations in the parking garage that stretched until security dimmed the lights for the night. Lunches that looked accidental to everyone else and inevitable to you.
