#Chapter 72: Summoned

Kayla The air thinned out the second that Nicholas stepped away from me. My fingers loosened around the stem of my wine glass, but I didn’t set it down. I held onto it like an anchor, like it was the only thing left tethering me to this world after losing his warmth. It was ridiculous. I should have felt relieved. I should have been grateful for the sudden absence of his suffocating presence—the constant pull he had on me, the way I was like a statue under his stormy gaze. I should have been glad to have full control of myself again, to not feel like a pathetic little slave to my own desires. But there was that damned ache again. That little spark of disappointment curling somewhere low in my stomach. As he moved to answer the phone, I raised the glass of wine to my lips and took a long, slow sip to soothe my frayed nerves. But it didn’t really help. The bitterness just settled heavily on my tongue as I glanced over at him, watching as he grabbed his phone off t