MICHAEL'S POV

The soft scrape of my pen across the ledger was the only sound in the study. Numbers blurred. Contracts waited patiently for my signature like obedient dogs at the foot of a distracted master. But I couldn’t focus.

Not really.

My attention kept drifting to the open door to the faint echo of a voice that had somehow slipped past my defenses and carved out a quiet space inside me I hadn’t consented to share.

Alessa.

Just hours ago, she’d floated down the hallway in a ...