Women who arrived at graduate school way after most people started with a history full of unfinished careers, magical failures, and family disappointment trailing behind them like ghosts.
Women who still flinched when their mothers called.
Women who spent their lives being tolerated instead of chosen.
Logic should have protected me.
It should have reminded me that this wasn’t real.
That he was helping me because he’d agreed to.
Because he pitied me.
Because maybe he was lonely too.
Not because he looked at me and saw something worth wanting.
And yet—every night I spent with him chipped away at that logic a little more.
The way he remembered things I said.
The way he adjusted his pace when we walked together.
The way his attention sharpened whenever I entered a room, as if some hidden part of him became instantly aware of me.
No one had ever noticed me like that before.
Not really.
Not without judgment attached.
But Sten looked at me like I mattered.
And gods help me—I was beginning to crave it.
Chapter 6-Amrin
“That’s fine. I have class in half an hour anyway,” he said, interrupting my train of thought.
I frowned, trying to drag my mind somewhere safer.
Somewhere other than the forbidden desires currently vying to take hold of my sanity.
“You take night classes?”
“Well,” he said, voice dry, “I am mostly nocturnal.”
My curiosity sharpened immediately.
That was the most personal thing he’d volunteered since we met.
A tiny crack in the armor.
A glimpse at something beneath all the sharp edges and sarcasm.
“Really?” I asked as he reached for my bag before I could stop him.
The simple gesture nearly melted my spine.
