The office door had barely finished closing behind Peter before Caro instinctively stepped backward from his desk, the folded note still trapped beneath her trembling fingers. Her pulse crashed violently against her ribs as his eyes lifted from the doorway directly to her face, then lower, toward the paper she had failed to hide in time. The silence that followed felt dangerously intimate, sharpened by exhaustion, rain, and everything unresolved between them.
Peter's gaze narrowed slightly. "What are you doing in my office?"
Caro opened her mouth, but her throat tightened too fast. Every explanation suddenly sounded incriminating. She could still feel the warmth of the note beneath her fingertips, the unfinished confession folded inside it, the crossed-out word she prayed he would never see. Peter stepped further into the room slowly, loosening the knot of his tie with one hand while watching her too carefully for comfort.
"You shouldn't be here," he said quietly.
