Penny's POV
"I'm here to see you," he stated with that familiar directness.
"What? Why would you be here?" The question tumbled out before I could stop it.
"Mind if I come upstairs?" he asked again, and something in his voice carried that hint of amusement I remembered too well. "We'll have more privacy to discuss things properly up there."
My pulse quickened. Dominic Sterling was the absolute last person I anticipated seeing today. Actually, he was the last person I expected to encounter any day at all. What we'd shared back in Aethelgard had crashed and burned in the most complicated way possible, and ever since we'd maintained a deliberate distance. The same distance he'd insisted upon when he placed me here in Ostaria while he remained in Zenora.
"Alright," I finally answered, hitting the buzzer to grant him access.
