Isla’s POV
The morning after the kiss tasted like fear.
Not the sharp kind that comes with danger.
The slow kind.
The quiet kind.
The kind that sinks into your bones before you even open your eyes.
When I woke, the first thing I felt was warmth in the place Chase had stood hours before. The second thing I felt was my heart slamming against my ribs, remembering the way his lips had moved against mine. Soft. Careful. Final in a way that nothing about our arrangement had ever been.
My fingers brushed my mouth instinctively, and heat rushed through me so fast it made me dizzy.
Then the panic came.
I sat up too quickly, breath shallow. The room felt wrong. Too bright. Too sharp. As if the entire mansion had shifted overnight and was now tilted at a dangerous angle. I dressed in silence
