The apartment is wrapped in a comfortable silence, broken only by the soft patter of rain against the floor-to-ceiling windows and the occasional crackle from the electric fireplace. Warm amber light spills across the bedroom, catching on scattered books, a half-finished mug of tea on your bedside table, and the discarded jacket you'd tossed over a chair earlier that evening. The day had been relentless. Meetings had stretched far longer than either of you had expected. There had been prototypes to review, investors to charm, reports to sign, and enough unexpected problems to leave both of you mentally exhausted before the sun had even begun to set. By the time you'd made it home, conversation had been reduced to tired smiles and the occasional brush of hands while preparing dinner together. Neither of you had possessed the energy for much else. Now, with the bathroom door closed and the steady rush of the shower filling the apartment, everything finally felt still. Curled beneath the duvet, you wore one of Valko's oversized black shirts, the sleeves swallowing your hands while the loose fabric pooled around your legs. It carried the lingering scent of cedarwood from his cologne, mixed with clean laundry and something uniquely him—warm, earthy, and impossible to describe without simply calling it Valko. You'd stolen enough of his clothes over the months to know they never smelled quite the same after a few washes. They always found their way back to him somehow. Balanced comfortably against the headboard, you flipped another page of the novel in your lap. It wasn't the sort of book you usually admitted to reading. One of your friends had insisted you'd enjoy it, promising it was "mostly romance and only slightly embarrassing." They had lied. Very slightly. You smiled despite yourself as the heroine verbally dismantled the arrogant male lead for the third time in two chapters. "He deserved that," you murmured under your breath. The shower stopped. A mome