Chapter 15

Zara 

Three days later 

Claim 

I’m sitting at my tiny kitchen table with one leg folded beneath me, twirling homemade tagliatelle through a sauce that took three hours and a bottle of wine to get right. It’s the kind of slow cooking that I used to love before my life became something scheduled around Knox’s moods, Knox’s dinners, Knox’s endless stream of men filling the house with cigar smoke and tension thick enough to choke on. 

I’d forgotten how much I missed this. Not just cooking, but cooking for myself. Tasting as I go. Leaving flour on the counter because nobody’s there to complain about the mess. Letting music drift through the apartment while garlic and basil cling to the air long after the stove is 

turned off. 

It feels embarrassingly good. Like finding a piece of myself exactly where I left her.