“Come here,” he said.
I did. I didn’t think about it. I just stepped between his knees.
He put his hands on my waist. “Can I?”
I nodded.
He lifted me like I weighed nothing and settled me sideways across his lap. The buggy dipped again and corrected itself with a quiet hum.
I should’ve worried about the audit.
I couldn’t make myself.
His arm came around my back, holding me steady. With his other hand, he reached for the box and pulled out the purple scarf.
“You’ve got a rule in you,” he said.
I swallowed. “What?”
“A rule. When someone gives you something good, you look for the trap.” He slid the scarf around my neck, slow and careful. The silk brushed against my skin and made me shiver. “You look for what it’ll cost. You try to give it back before they can make you pay.”
I couldn’t breathe right.
“I know that rule,” he said. “Had one like it in the pits. Nothing was free there. Gifts were bait.”
His fingers worked at the back of my neck, tying the scarf loosely enough that it didn’t feel like a collar. That mattered. Maybe he knew it. Maybe he just knew me.
“There’s no trap here,” he said. “I’m not buying anything from you. You don’t owe me time, or touch. You don’t owe me staying.”
My eyes stung again.
“I made the buggy because you should be able to go where you want without asking me.” His thumb brushed the silk at my throat. “I bought the scarves because I wanted you to have something soft. That’s all.”
“That’s not all,” I whispered.
His eyes held mine.
“No,” he admitted. “It’s not all. But none of it is a debt.”
I looked down at the scarf. At the way the violet silk lay against my skin. I’d spent so long making myself need less. Want less. Take up less room.
Kazan kept handing me room.
Room to leave or to stay. Room to want.
“I deserve a scarf,” I said. It sounded small. Like I wasn’t sure.
His hand stilled at my throat. “Yes.”
I made myself say it again. “I deserve a scarf.”
His expression softened in a way that hurt. “You deserve the entire galaxy.”
There was no pretty flourish in his voice. No attempt to make it sound grand.
He said it like a fact.
That was what undid me.
