KNOX’S POV
It’s past three when I finally give up on the crown for the night and go to her.
I shower first, in the dark, because I’ve been in a cold garage and three colder meetings and I’ve got the whole ugly day still on my skin, and I don’t want to bring any of it into that bed.
It’s a rule I’ve made without ever saying it aloud: whatever the day is, whatever’s rotting out there in the world with my name on it, I wash it off before I touch her.
She gets the clean version. She’s earned the clean version.
That’s the whole reason I do any of it, if I’m honest with myself.
The councils, the reports, the endless machinery of holding a continent together while everyone else sleeps—I grind through all of it, every night, chasing the one moment I get to walk into that room and find her
