Two simple words. Not a command. Not even a request. A presentation of an option. Stay.
Shuyin closed her eyes. She thought of Long Chen's laughing voice in her mind. Try being ordinary. What was ordinary in this human arrangement? Was it fleeing to a child's bedroom to avoid the complicated adult in your own? Or was it lying in the dark beside your husband, negotiating the new, uncharted borders of a ceasefire that felt thrillingly fragile?
"The documents can always wait until she's asleep," Lu Yuze added, his voice a low murmur in the shadows. "The story is important."
He was giving her a reason, an excuse to stay that wasn't about him, or about the heat that had so recently arced between them. It was about Yuyan. About the family unit. It was a peace offering, smartly disguised as paternal duty.
