The week settled into a gentle rhythm. Adrian made a conscious effort to open up, not all at once, but in small, meaningful ways. He told me about his childhood, about the weight of expectations and the loneliness of being the heir to a conglomerate. He showed me photos of his sister, Lily, laughing in a sunlit garden. He even let me into his study without the usual walls. And I, in turn, shared pieces of myself I'd kept hidden. The fear of being unlovable. The anger at Noah's betrayal. The desperate hope that this, whatever this was would last. It was real progress. By Friday evening, I felt lighter than I had in weeks. Adrian suggested we cook dinner together, a simple pasta dish that quickly devolved into a flour fight and ended with both of us laughing on the kitchen floor. "This is not how I imagined dinner going," I said, wiping flour from my cheek. "Better or worse?" he asked, grinning. "Better. Definitely better." We cleaned up together, side by side at the
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