Page 106 of Scaled Daddy's Secret Heir

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I give her the faintest shrug. “You get used to silence. Makes noise feel expensive.”

Her jaw works, like she’s chewing on something sharp.

“You could’ve sent a message. Anything.”

“I couldn’t.”

“Still can’t?”

“No,” I admit. “But I’m here.”

“Congratulations,” she says, voice dry as Glimner’s high dunes. “Want a parade?”

“No,” I say. “Just this.”

I don’t mean the doorstep. I don’t mean the sand under our boots or the coastal wind coiling between us.

I mean her eyes.

I mean her voice—even full of acid.

I mean her stillbeing.

That’s the only thing that’s felt real since I got out.

She studies me, and I can feel her cycling through things she’s not ready to say.

That’s fine.

I’ve learned to wait.

“You’re not going to ask what I’ve been doing?” she says.

“Not unless you want to tell me.”

That catches her off guard.

She leans against the frame a little harder, like her body’s trying to stay braced against something invisible.

“You always did that.”

“What?”

“Make it easy to lie.”

I let the words settle before I respond. “Then don’t.”

Her mouth tightens.

But she doesn’t lie.

Not yet.

Instead she tips her chin up, eyes narrow. “Spuel,” she says. “What happened?”

I exhale slowly.

The name hits me like sand in an open wound.

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