"I'll buy the cake you like," Cillian says into the phone. Hadlee breathes only. The line goes dead. Her thumb loosens on the screen. The phone clatters against the coffee table and spins, face-down next to a Starbucks mug with lipstick at the rim. A bakery receipt is taped to the rim of the mug, edges curling; "Chocolate Fudge—Happy Birthday" the barista wrote in quick pen strokes. The handwriting smudged where Hadlee has been tracing it all morning. A knock, three sharp taps. Hadlee doesn't move. "Hadlee," Cillian says outside the door. She flinches, then forces herself up. Her voice is thin. "Don't come in." "Mind if I ignore you?" His voice doesn't carry anger. It carries resolve. "You can't—" She stops. The last time she said that, the cameras found the phrase and turned it into a headline. She closes her eyes. "Please." "Not this time." The lock clicks, and Cillian opens the door. He wears a gray overcoat that smells faintly of cheap coffee and cologne. His tie is loosened. He looks like a man who walked out of a meeting and straight into her apartment, which is exactly what he did. "You told me not to come," he says as he steps in and sinks onto the couch across from her, the coffee table between them like a small country. "That's different," Hadlee says. "You don't belong here. I don't need—" "You belong here." He lifts one