His answer—cold and impassive—landed like another blow. But instead of collapsing, something shifted inside her. The pain was still there, burning, but it began to take on a different shape. A mix of defiance, provocation, and an almost desperate need to pull some kind of reaction out of him. Any reaction.

“Don’t humiliate myself?” she repeated in a weighted whisper. “Then tell me… when I get close and you smell me… you don’t feel anything?” Her fingers slid along his neck, her gaze locked on h