Chapter 52

• I woke to the soft weight of Julian’s hand draped loosely over my waist. The room was still dim, with only the early morning light sneaking in through the linen curtains, but I didn’t move. My breath stayed even, quiet, as I let myself feel the hush that existed between us before the world stirred. His palm was warm. Familiar. Grounding in a way I hadn’t known I would ever come to need.
• We hadn’t spoken about it the first night I stayed. There had been no discussion. No drawn lines. No defined shift. Only the gravity of the day that had come before, the unraveling that happened quietly once the door had shut behind us. And since then, it had become natural. Undramatic. He never crossed into my space unless I invited him. He never assumed. But I had stopped pulling away.
• There was a peace to the mornings that didn’t exist anywhere else. No calls. No urgent alerts from Claudia. No half-breathed panic from Simone. Just the warmth of a body I trusted beside me, and the quiet of being seen without needing to perform anything at all.