KRISTEN'S POV

Sleep was a stranger that night.

I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling while Eliana’s steady breathing filled the silence beside me. Her presence should have soothed me, but instead, it set my thoughts into a frenzy. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him—Arden—his calm, unshaken composure at breakfast, the teasing curve of his lips when he spoke, and the way Eliana’s eyes had softened when he leaned toward her.

I hated that image more than I hated anything else in ...