Chapter 23 The Edge Of Us

• The kitchen was too quiet. Too sharp. The kind of silence that made every clatter of cutlery sound like breaking glass. Élise stood by the stove, her hands trembling as she stirred the sauce that had already started to congeal. She wasn’t cooking because she was hungry. She was cooking because it was the only thing that kept her from screaming.
• Behind her, Antoine’s presence loomed like a storm at her back. Heavy and unrelenting.
• “This is all about you shutting me out,” she said at last, her voice trembling but steady enough to carry the weight of her hurt.