Ellie slid a plate of golden-brown toast onto the counter, then reached for a bowl of mixed berries. "Feel like helping? Nothing standing required."
Before I could answer, she placed a wooden cutting board in front of me, followed by a paring knife and the berry bowl.
"Just quarter the strawberries," she instructed. "The rest can stay whole."
I picked up the knife, its weight familiar in my hand. Such a simple task, cutting fruit for breakfast. A month ago, I'd been racing to meet deadlines, chasing leads that would eventually put me in this safehouse. Now I was quartering strawberries while a bodyguard made French toast.
"This is nice," I said quietly, surprising myself with how much I meant it.
Ellie nodded, flipping another piece of toast. "Sometimes normal is exactly what we need."
The kitchen door swung open and Alex strode in, her boots silent on the tile floor. She wore black tactical pants, paired with a fitted grey t-shirt that hugged her full breasts and muscular torso. Her dark hair was pulled back in a severe bun, not a strand out of place. She moved with precision, like someone who calculated the energy expenditure of each step.
She didn't look at me as she reached for a mug from the cabinet.
My hands stilled on the cutting board. I watched her profile, willing her to turn, to acknowledge my presence. To give me something—a glance, a nod, anything that suggested last night had happened. That I hadn't imagined her hands on me, her mouth against mine, the weight of her body pinning me to the mattress.
Nothing.
"Coffee's fresh," Ellie said, sliding another piece of French toast onto the growing stack.
Alex poured herself a cup, black. Her movements were economical, almost mechanical. I cut another strawberry, the knife blade catching the morning light.
"Morning, Alex," I said, my voice coming out steadier than I felt.
She took a sip of coffee. No response. Not even a flicker of recognition that I'd spoken.
Heat crawled up my neck—not desire this time, but humiliation. I'd been naked beneath her less than twelve hours ago. She'd made me come so hard I'd seen stars. She'd looked into my eyes while Kara held me down, had whispered things against my skin that made me shake.
And now I was furniture. Invisible.
I forced myself to focus on the strawberries, on the repetitive motion of cutting, quartering, setting aside. The knife's edge bit into the cutting board with each slice, a quiet rhythm that anchored me.
"South gate cameras are acting up again," Alex said to Ellie, as if I weren't sitting three feet away.
Ellie glanced between us, her brow furrowing slightly. I caught the question in her eyes before she masked it. She'd been here last night too. She knew exactly what had transpired in my bedroom.
"I thought you fixed those last night?" Ellie flipped another piece of toast with perhaps more force than necessary.
"I did." Alex took another sip, her profile sharp against the morning light streaming through the window. "They're throwing error codes now. Going to head out with Kara, see what's happening."
I kept my head down, focusing on quartering strawberries. My fingers trembled slightly, and I pressed the knife harder against the cutting board to steady them. The juice from the berries stained my fingertips red.
Last night played in my mind like fragments I couldn't quite piece together. Alex's hand around my throat, her voice low and dangerous in my ear. The wayshe'd looked at me afterward—not soft, never soft, but present. Seeing me. And then she'd simply walked away, leaving me shaking and confused in Kara's arms.
Now she stood six feet from me, discussing security protocols as if I were invisible. As if I hadn't gasped her name. As if she hadn't made me wonder, for long terrifying moments, whether pleasure and fear could exist in the same breath.
I stole a glance at her face, searching for any crack in that perfect mask, any hint that somewhere behind those storm-glass eyes lived a person capable of vulnerability.
Nothing.
Ellie's spatula hit the pan with a sharp clang. "You want breakfast before you go?"
"No time." Alex set her half-empty mug in the sink with careful precision. She turned toward the doorway, and for a split second, I thought she might look at me. Hoped for it, even as I hated myself for hoping.
She walked out without a backward glance.
The silence she left behind felt like a physical weight. I stared at the strawberry beneath my knife, watching juice pool around the blade.
