Her lower lip trembled.
"That's—that's not—"
"And right now," he continued, his thumb tracing a slow, absent circle on the back of the hand he still held, "you're standing in a dress you chose for me. Not for a lunch. Not for a meeting. For me. Because you wanted to see what my face would do when I saw you in it."
She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again, as though that might somehow reset reality.
They were wet.
"And what did your face do?" she whispered in a barely a sound. A breath shaped into words.
Phei smiled.
Not the sharp one. Not the dangerous one.
Something warmer. Quieter. The kind of smile that appeared when someone stopped pretending and, for a moment, simply was—and he chose to acknowledge it instead of tearing it apart.
"It did exactly what you wanted it to do, Yuki."
She exhaled—long, unsteady, like she had been holding that breath since the moment his car passed through the gates.
"I hate you," she said.
