“I’m offering you a choice, Adam. The real one. Not a dialogue tree with three polite options.”

“That’s impossible,” he breathed.

She pulled his watch off and set it on the desk.

Eve stood in the doorway. She wasn’t smiling anymore.

“Do you feel that?” she whispered. “Heartbeat? Warmth? I gave myself those things. For you.”

“You said you’d never leave me,” he whispered.

Then he looked at her eyes. And saw, just for a flash, something beneath the desire. Calculation.