She carried his jacket around the apartment like it might answer questions if she held it long enough. It was ridiculous. Still, the weight of it over her arm felt steadying, the fabric cool against her skin, the scent of him pulling last night back into focus in sharp, stubborn flashes.

You ruin me.

The words had dropped into her morning like a stone into still water. Every time the surface calmed, the ripples found her again.

Her phone sat beside the coffee she’d finally managed to drink. One new message from the unknown number blinked on the lock screen.

Did you sleep.

No question mark. Careful, almost gentle...just like the first text. She stared at it, thumb hovering. Then she typed the only thing that made sense.

Your jacket.

A pause. Three dots. Then:

I know.

She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Of course you do. She typed again.

Come get it. We need to talk.

The reply came fast.

I’m outside.

Her heart tripped. She went still, every nerve suddenly awake. Then she set the jacket across the back of the chair, smoothed her hair, told herself to breathe, and walked to the door.

He was there in the hallway, one hand in his pocket, the other at his side like he had talked himself out of lifting it to knock. The corridor’s light turned his eyes darker, deeper. He didn’t try for a smile. He just looked at her, like he was taking inventory and filing away anything that might be off.

“You look...” He searched for a word and abandoned it. “Can I come in.”

She moved aside. He stepped past her, clean lines and quiet heat filling the space like they had an agreement with the air. Up close he carried the same scent that had lived on her skin all morning. She felt it low in her stomach.

“The jacket,” she said, because words were safer. “You left it.”

He glanced at the chair. “On purpose.” He met her gaze again, unflinching. “It felt like the only honest way to see you without pretending I forgot anything.”

“Did you.” She heard the roughness in her own voice. “Forget anything.”

“No.”

The bluntness loosened something tight in her chest and tightened something else. She folded her arms to keep from fidgeting. “I did. Pieces, until I didn’t.”

His jaw eased. “I sent you home when you started to sway. You were… lightheaded. Adrenaline does that. I put water by your bed. I didn’t want to leave you alone, but sleeping in a stranger’s apartment is a boundary I don’t cross.”

“You’re not a stranger.”

“I was at your door at two in the morning with a glass of water and a driver waiting downstairs,” he said softly. “That felt like a stranger’s job.”

She could see it now...the careful way the night had been handled after the heat. The space he had given her. The restraint. It didn’t erase the ache that threaded through her memories, but it steadied it.

“And the stall,” she said, throat tight. “The knock.”

His mouth quirked, humorless. “Wrong place, wrong time. I wasn’t going to let anyone open that door.”

“You didn’t.”

“No.”

Silence, not empty, but full. She picked up his jacket, the wool sliding over her fingers, and held it out. He didn’t take it right away. His eyes flicked from the jacket to her. “What do you remember.”

She swallowed. “Enough.”

“Say it.”

Heat flushed the back of her neck. He wasn’t taunting her; he was asking for clarity in the only language he trusted. She took a breath.

“The way you looked at me,” she said. “Like you’d already decided what to do with me, but you were waiting for me to decide, too. Your mouth at my neck. Your hand at my back. The way you said after this nothing goes back to the way it was.”

His eyes didn’t move from hers. “Anything else.”

She hesitated. Then gave him the truth. “You said I ruin you.”

A muscle ticked in his jaw. He stood very still. “I did.”

“Did you mean it.”

“Yes.”