I spend the entire car ride trying to figure out what just happened.
Not the mechanics of it. That part is simple enough. Bael crossed the room, touched my jaw, kissed me, stepped back, told me we should leave. Clear sequence of events. I have all of that.
What I don't have is a single reason that explains it.
It wasn't heat, it wasn't tension that had been building into something. There was no argument, no moment of pressure, nothing that was heading anywhere before it happened. He'd just looked at me standing there in the sitting room and decided to kiss me and then immediately acted like he hadn't.
That's what I can't place anywhere.
Beside me, Bael answers a message. Says something brief to Liang Feng about arrival timing. Sits exactly the way he always sits, composed and unhurried, completely unaffected.
Like the thirty seconds in the sitting room doesn't exist.
I look out the window.
