Linsy stood frozen, her mind reeling. The gentle weight of Michael’s hand on her head was a sensation so foreign, so achingly tender, it threatened to shatter her resolve into a million pieces. In three years of marriage, he had never been this… soft. If not for the cold, hard facts of their contract, if not for the spectral presence of Violet Bento that always stood between them, she might have crumbled then and there, her desire to stay by his side rekindled by this simple, unexpected ...