The air in the bedroom felt thick, saturated with the weight of the secret Adrian had left behind. I lay in the center of the massive bed, my skin still tingling from the frantic intimacy of the studio, yet my core felt like ice. I stared at the ceiling, listening to the rhythmic thump-thump of the heart in my chest.
His first love.
The realization was a jagged blade. Every breath I took, every pulse that Adrian monitored with such feverish obsession, wasn't just mine. It was a remnant of a woman who had been sacrificed so that I—a girl Adrian hadn't even known yet—could live. I wasn't just his masterpiece; I was his graveyard.
The door opened at three in the morning. Adrian didn't turn on the lights. He moved through the darkness with the familiarity of a ghost, his silhouette cutting
