By morning, the world outside had disappeared.

Wren stood at her window with a cup of coffee she'd found in a kitchen too well-stocked for one man living alone, watching snow hurl itself sideways, erasing the driveway, the tree line, the very idea of a road. Her rental car was a white shape now, indistinguishable from the drifts around it.

Her burner phone showed no signal. Not one flickering bar. Nothing.

"It won't get better today."

She turned. Damon stood in the kitchen doorway — she hadn't heard him arrive, and something told her that was never an accident with him — dressed like he had somewhere important to be, though he'd already told her the roads were gone.

"How long does a storm like this usually last?"

"Long enough." He crossed to the coffee pot, poured himself a cup without asking if there was any left for her, which there wasn't, quite, and didn't apologize for it. "You're mine for the duration, Ms. Castellan. I hope you weren't attached to any other plans this week."

The word landed harder than it should have. Mine. She told herself it was a figure of speech.

"I've survived worse company," she said.

"Have you." Not a question. He studied her over the rim of his mug, unhurried, and she had the distinct sense of being read like a ledger — assets, liabilities, the places where the numbers didn't quite balance. "Tell me about yourself. We appear to be housemates for the foreseeable future, and I like to know exactly what I'm keeping under my roof."

Keeping. Another word she filed away and didn't examine too closely.

She gave him the built version — Ohio, an art history degree from a program that didn't exist, a career of being trustworthy and forgettable. It was good work. It had never once failed her.

Damon listened without interrupting, and when she finished, said nothing for a beat too long.

"That's a very complete story," he said finally.

"It's not a story. It's my life."

"Everyone's life is a story. Yours is simply better rehearsed than most." He set his mug down, and something sharpened behind his eyes — not suspicion exactly, more like the first flare of real interest, a predator noticing movement it hadn't expected from something it had already decided to underestimate. "I don't waste compliments on people I've finished deciding about, Wren. You should feel flattered I'm still paying attention."

He said her first name like he had every right to it, and the low, unwanted thrill that went through her at the sound of it told her exactly how much trouble she was already in