Isla’s POV
Distance does not always announce itself.
Sometimes it arrives quietly, dressed as responsibility, masked as restraint. It slips between words that are not spoken and gestures that never happen. It grows in the spaces where warmth once lived, until suddenly the room feels colder and you cannot remember when the window was opened.
Chase became distant on purpose.
I felt it the first morning he left before I woke, the bed already cool on his side. Then again when his schedule filled with meetings that did not require my presence. Training ran longer. Dinners were delayed. Conversations shortened into efficiency. He still checked that I ate. Still ensured security followed me. Still asked staff if I needed anything.
But he stopped lingering.
Stopped looking at me the way he u
