RUBI
The morning sunlight slipped past the gauzy curtains and spilled across the bed like it belonged there. Warm and lazy, it slid over cream silk sheets that I’d wrapped around myself sometime during the night—like armor, like a cocoon. For a moment, I didn’t move. I just lay there, eyes half-open, letting the silence settle over me like a soft blanket.
It was… calm. No footsteps. No phones buzzing. Just me, the quiet hum of morning, and the faint trace of cologne clinging to the air—his scent. Expensive, but not flashy. Subtle. A little smoky. Sandalwood maybe, and something warm underneath that I couldn’t name but recognized anyway. It smelled like safety.
That’s what made me sit up.
The sheets slipped from my legs as I moved, and for a second, I forgot where I was. Then it came ru
