HECTOR
The city stretched out before me, glass and steel catching the morning light in glimmers that should’ve felt majestic. But beauty had no hold over me this morning. Not when the weight of last night still lingered like smoke on my skin.
I sat quietly in my office, hands folded, gaze vacant. The chair beneath me felt too rigid, the air too still, too full of memories I wasn’t ready to revisit.
Rubi.
I could still smell her. That soft, inviting fragrance that clung to her skin and haunted my thoughts long after she’d walked away. And even though every instinct in me screamed to hold her, to pull her close and taste the forgiveness I didn’t deserve… I hadn’t.
God, I had been so close.
She had looked at me with those pained, beautiful eyes brimming with disappointment, but more so,
