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. A 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.
You never told him what was happening inside you all at once.
You never told him that your life before him had been a long hallway of hesitation. A strict childhood. A mother who turned affection into leverage. A father who left early enough that his absence hardened into architecture. A series of almost-relationships that ended the second anyone asked you to move faster than your heart could walk.
So when you texted Ethan that evening, your hands shook so badly you had to erase the message four times.
I want to be alone with you tonight, if you want that too.
He answered almost immediately.
