SOPHIE'S POV
After the kiss, they couldn't pretend anymore.
They couldn't go back to being strangers. They couldn't sit at breakfast with professional distance. They couldn't pretend that what had happened in his office was a mistake that they could just move past.
But they also couldn't actually admit what was happening between them.
So they existed in this strange space. Neither together nor apart. Neither following the contract nor breaking it completely.
It started the night after the kiss. Sophie was in her room trying to sleep when she heard a knock. Soft. Uncertain. Daniel standing in her doorway like he was asking permission to come in.
She didn't say anything. She just pulled back the covers.
He slipped into bed beside her still fully clothed. He didn't say anything either. He just lay there in the dark next to her and it was somehow more intimate than anything physical could have been.
The next night, she was already waiting for him.
By the end of the first week, Sophie had moved all her things into his bedroom. Not because the contract required it. But because she wanted to wake up next to him. Because she wanted to fall asleep listening to him breathe. Because being close to him felt like the most important thing in the world.
They didn't talk about it. They didn't acknowledge that this was changing everything. They just existed together in the quiet dark.
They held each other through the nights.
They kissed like they were learning a new language. Soft kisses. Deep kisses. The kind of kisses that meant something. They kissed until Sophie forgot that she had a timeline. Until she forgot that this was supposed to be temporary.
They fell deeper with every moment.
Daniel would hold her while she slept. Sophie would trace patterns on his chest with her fingers while he worked beside her in bed. They were learning each other in ways that had nothing to do with the contract and everything to do with the truth.
But they didn't cross certain lines. Didn't let it go as far as it could have. Both of them holding onto some piece of the arrangement even as they were destroying it.
Like if they didn't let it go completely, they could still pretend they had some control over what was happening.
Three weeks into sharing his bed, Sophie woke up early.
The sun was just starting to creep across the walls. Daniel was still sleeping beside her. His face was relaxed in a way it never was when he was awake. He looked younger. Less burdened. Like the weight of his empire didn't exist in sleep.
Sophie watched him breathe.
And she finally admitted the truth to herself.
She was in love with him.
Completely. Terrifyingly. Impossibly in love with him.
This wasn't supposed to happen. She was supposed to do her job and leave. She was supposed to maintain distance and emotional detachment. She was supposed to survive three years and walk away with her heart intact.
But her heart wasn't intact. Her heart was sitting next to her in this bed breathing softly in the early morning light.
Sophie realized she was going to walk away from this penthouse with her heart completely shattered. She was going to leave Daniel and spend the rest of her life wondering if what they had was real or if it was just a beautiful illusion created by the contract that brought them together.
She buried her face in the pillow and cried silently.
Not loud crying. Not dramatic crying. The kind of crying where your whole body shakes because you're mourning something that hasn't even ended yet. The kind of crying where you're grieving a future that you know is coming.
She was mourning a man she still had almost three years to love.
"Sophie?"
She froze.
Daniel was awake. His hand was on her back, moving in gentle circles.
"What's wrong?" he asked softly.
Sophie couldn't tell him the truth. Couldn't tell him that she was crying because she was in love with him and it was going to destroy her. Couldn't tell him that every moment they spent together was making it harder to imagine walking away.
"Nothing," she whispered. "I just had a bad dream."
He didn't believe her. She could feel it in the way his hand stopped moving. In the way his body went still beside hers.
Daniel knew. And he was terrified because he was falling too. She could see it in the way he'd been looking at her. In the careful way he held her like she might disappear. In the way he listened to her talk like every word she said mattered more than anything else in his world.
He was falling and he was terrified.
"Talk to me," he said quietly.
Sophie turned to face him. His dark eyes were searching hers, trying to find the real answer underneath the lie she'd just told.
"I can't," she said. Because if she started talking about what was really wrong, she might never stop. She might tell him that she loved him and she was scared and she didn't know how to survive walking away.
"You can tell me anything," Daniel said.
"Not this," Sophie said. "Not this one thing."
She kissed him instead of continuing. Kissed him like she could pour all the things she couldn't say into the space between them. Kissed him like she was trying to memorize the feeling of his lips against hers so she could survive the years without him that were coming.
Daniel kissed her back with desperation that matched her own.
They held onto each other as the sun continued to rise. As the day started to break. As the real world crept back in with its demands and its problems and its contracts.
"I'm scared," Daniel said when they finally broke apart.
Sophie looked at him and saw it all reflected back at her. The fear. The love. The knowledge that they were running out of time even though they technically had years.
"I know," she whispered.
"I don't know how to do this," he continued. "I don't know how to be with you and know that you're leaving. I don't know how to survive that."
Sophie pulled him close. Held his head against her chest and let him feel her heart beating.
"We don't have to figure it out today," she said.
But they both knew that wasn't true. They both knew that every day they were together was a day closer to the end. They both knew that the contract was a countdown they couldn't stop.
Daniel fell asleep with his head on her chest and his arms around her waist.
Sophie stayed awake and held him and mourned the future she could see coming whether she wanted to or not.
She had two years and eleven months left with Daniel Stone.
And she was going to spend every single day terrified of losing him.