Hannah halted on the spot, the breath whooshing out of her lungs as if she'd been physically struck. For a moment, she genuinely thought she had heard him wrong.
Slowly, she turned to face Taryn, horror bleeding into her expression, her face draining until she looked pale as a sheet.
"What did you just say?"
But Taryn didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
Not with the raw, pained look in his eyes that made it hard for her to breathe. The walls he always kept so firmly in place were gone.
Right now, her usually tough as nut bargain-bin Mufasa looked vulnerable as hell.
That realization unsettled her more than the words themselves.
Hannah didn't speak. She simply crossed the room and sat back down on the edge of the bed, her movements slow, as if any sudden motion might shatter this fragile moment between them. Her hands clasped together in her lap, fingers twisting unconsciously.
The room fell into a silence that was thick, awkward, and suffocating.
