The alarms outside kept shrieking.
Phones kept buzzing.
Staff kept running in the hallway, panicked voices overlapping like a crashing wave.
But inside the small strategy room…
It was strangely quiet.
Almost too quiet.
Lian stood frozen in Rian's arms, the weight of what they'd just done sinking in slowly — painfully — like cold water filling his lungs.
The truth was out.
Their truth.
No filters.
No PR spin.
No softening.
Just them.
Rian wasn't shaking, but his arm around Lian tightened just enough that Lian understood:
He wasn't calm.
He was holding himself together by a thread.
Lian leaned his forehead against Rian's shoulder. "Is it really starting?"
Rian's breath pressed against the side of his neck — warm, steady, grounding.
"It started the moment I touched you in that hallway," he murmured.
Lian flushed.
"That was your fault," Lian whispered into his shoulder.
