"Let them come to me."
His voice was barely a murmur, low enough to brush against her skin more than her ears. The hallway around them blurred, its hum dulled by the heat threading between them. Even the walls seemed to hold their breath.
"You don't have to step in," she said, voice almost lost to the hush. "You'd be risking your reputation. You don't owe me anything anymore."
Her gaze searched his, like she could peel back the steel and find the motive stitched between his silences.
"I don't move out of debt," he said, calm and unblinking. "I move because I choose to. And right now—" his eyes held hers like a vow "—I choose this. Because it feels right."
There was no grandeur intent in it. No grandstanding, no heroics. Just bone-deep certainty. His intentions wasn't planned, they wasn't noble either just honest. Just a man who made a decision and stood in it like a mountain.
