Anna's POV:

The silence after my last words is too heavy.

He doesn't nod. He doesn't relax. He stands there with that expression still doing its quiet, measuring work — pulling apart what I said from what he wants it to mean — and the deliberate stillness of someone who has not accepted what he just heard.

"Nothing beyond friendship," he repeats. The flatness in his voice tightens my stomach. "And yet he knew you were in the hospital. He knew ...