The Cameron house had always felt too big. Too cold. Rafe used to think it was the way the light reflected off the marble floors or the way every sound echoed as if the house were trying to remind you how empty it really was. But now, standing in the doorway, he knew it wasn’t the house. It was him.

And then she appeared.

She wasn’t supposed to be here, not really. She was Sarah’s friend, Wheezie’s babysitter, a Pogue who didn’t belong in a place like this. But there she was, leaning against the kitchen counter like she’d carved a space for herself in a world that wasn’t hers. Like she was unbothered by the weight of the walls pressing down around her.

She wasn’t like anyone else in Rafe’s life. She didn’t flinch when he snapped, didn’t back down when he baited her. It annoyed him, how easily she stood her ground. How effortlessly she slipped into the cracks of his carefully constructed defenses.

“Do you think mermaids are real?” Wheezie’s voice carried from the living room, bright and innocent.

She laughed, the sound warm and soft in a way that caught him off guard. “Only if you believe hard enough.”

Her answer wasn’t for him, but he felt it anyway.

Rafe didn’t know what it was about her—her quick wit, her unshakable confidence, or the way she seemed to see through the cracks in him without even trying. Whatever it was, he knew it was dangerous.

Because people like her didn’t belong in his world. And Rafe Cameron? He was the kind of person who destroyed anything good that came too close.

But as he stood there, watching her, he couldn’t help but wonder if maybe — just maybe — she could see the parts of him he tried so hard to bury. And worse, he wondered if she cared.