You are twenty-five years old, standing in Room 806 of the tallest hotel in downtown Chicago, with your purse clutched so tightly against your ribs that your fingers ache. The city glows beneath the windows like a carpet of electric gold, but all you can hear is your own pulse, hard and frantic, pounding in your ears. You came here by choice. That is the part you keep repeating to yourself, because choice feels safer than fear.
For a year, Ethan Cole had been the calmest man you had ever known.
He was thirty-eight, polished without looking arrogant, careful with his words, patient in a world that always seemed to interrupt you before you finished a sentence. You met him at the financial consulting firm where you worked in client relations, and from the beginning he was different from the men who mistook politeness for a transaction. He listened. He remembered details. He never crowded you, never flirted in that slick, rehearsed way that made your skin tighten.
He simply became a place your mind kept returning to.
