'How exquisitely cruel it is,' Phei thought, 'to discover that happiness could be this quiet.'
Not triumphant, roaring, or dressed in the gaudy splendour of victory or wealth or all those other noisy things the world kept mistaking for fulfilment, but quiet.
It lived here in the amber-lit hush of Melissa's penthouse, the elegant distance between the city lights beyond the glass and the soft music spilling through the room and in the warmth of the woman held against him as though the entire ruinous machinery of his life had paused long enough to let him understand what peace tasted like when it wore perfume, silk, and grief finally loosening its claws.
How deliciously dangerous it was to hold her like this, though "nice" remained such a poor, starving little word for the magnitude of what was in his hands now.
