Derek did not turn around. But his posture shifted the way it always did when he registered her presence, a small, almost imperceptible adjustment, the awareness of another person entering his space.

Kira kept her face arranged, moved to the fridge and opened it to find something to take with her, telling herself she was unbothered.

"You’ve been skipping breakfast," he suddenly said, not turning to look at her.

She turned her head. He had turned from the stove, and their eyes met across the kitchen, and her traitorous, entirely unreasonable heart did the thing it had been doing since the night of the dance. She looked away quickly, reaching further into the fridge for something her hands hadn’t actually found yet, hoping the cool air from the open door explained any colour in her face.

"I eat when I’m hungry," she said.

She heard him move before she registered that he was moving, and then she was no longer looking into the fridge. She was standing with her back to it, the door swinging shut, and Derek was directly in front of her, close enough that she had to tilt her chin up to hold his gaze. Something sharp and unreadable moved through his amber eyes.

"Hunger isn’t the only reason to eat, Kira. Do you want to kill—" He stopped. Something flickered across his face, and he reset. "Do you plan to starve yourself to death?"

She felt the flash of emotion move through her before she could stop it, all the days of distance and silence and lying awake in a quiet room pressing up against the inside of her chest.

"You don’t get to stand there pretending to care," she said.

His brows drew together. "What do you mean?"

She tried to move around him, because if she stood here any longer with his eyes on her face, she was going to say more than she had intended to, and today of all days, she needed her composure intact. But his hand caught her arm, gently, and she found her back against the fridge again, his palm flat beside her head, not trapping her, just present.

"Talk to me," he said.

She looked at him for a moment. At the genuine confusion in his face, the absence of the cold mask, the way he was actually looking at her, and something gave way quietly.

"I know this marriage isn’t real," she said.

"I know what it is. I’m not asking for something that it isn’t. But you cannot take me through this every other week. You’re warm and present one day, and the next you’ve disappeared completely. You blow hot, you blow cold, and I’m just supposed to keep adjusting."

She held his gaze steadily. "Pick a lane, Derek. Whichever one it is, I can manage it. I just need it to be consistent."

The kitchen was very quiet.

Something in his expression shifted, softening in the way she had only seen a handful of times, and each time it undid her a little more.

"Is that why you haven’t been eating?" he asked.

"I told you. I eat when I’m hungry."

He pulled back, but he took her with him, one hand at her elbow, guiding her to the kitchen island and settling her onto it with a careful deliberateness that she did not quite know how to respond to.

She opened her mouth to say she was already running late, but he was already back at the stove, and within a second, a plate slid onto the counter in front of her.

A perfectly folded omelette, golden at the edges, with two slices of toast beside it. Two mugs of steaming hot chocolate followed.

Kira stared at the plate. Then at him. "Did you actually make this?"

"I was testing my cooking skills. Don’t take it personally," he said, which was not the truth, and they both knew it.

He leaned back against the opposite counter, arms folded, and watched her with the particular quality of attention he usually reserved for things he considered important.

"Ishita mentioned you like omelette. Eat. I need you in good health before you leave today." He paused. "And when did you last have a proper check-up? Since Snow Crest?"

Kira frowned. "Why would I need a check-up? I’m fine."

"You need to know your health status."

"I know my health status. It’s fine."

He looked at her with that expression she couldn’t quite understand.

Then, he came around the island and sat in the chair beside her, and when she put her mug down, his hand covered hers. The touch was quiet and unhurried, and it made her breath catch in a way she hoped was not visible.

"Don’t skip meals because of me again," he said. His voice had dropped to something lower, something that carried more weight than the words themselves. "I won’t make you feel that way again."

Kira looked at their hands. Then she picked up her fork and took a bite of the omelette, mostly to give herself something to do.

It was excellent. She had not expected that.

"It’s good," she said, nodding towards the plate. "The omelette, I mean. Better than your moods, anyway."

The corner of his mouth moved. Not quite a smile. Nearly. "Don’t push your luck."

She smiled, genuinely, and let herself have it. "Thank you. For breakfast. And for the... whatever that was. An apology?"

"A truce," he said, and did not look away. "Connor will be with you for the whole day. I have a few things left to settle this morning, but I will be at the event tonight. I won’t leave you to face that room alone."

Something warm settled low in her stomach, something that had nothing at all to do with the omelette. "I can handle a room full of vipers. I’ve been managing you for weeks, haven’t I?"

Derek made a sound that was close to a snort. "Fair point. Now eat. You have a long day."

She was three bites further into her breakfast when the kitchen door opened.

Ruby stepped in, immaculately dressed, red hair swept perfectly into place, her smile arriving before the rest of her. She looked at Kira, then at Derek, then at the two mugs and the plate and the general domesticity of the scene, and her smile did not falter by a single degree.

"Good morning," she said brightly. "I didn’t realise anyone was in here."

Kira looked at her calmly over the rim of her mug.

She knew exactly what that smile meant. And she knew, with the particular instinct of a woman who had grown up learning to read rooms, that Ruby’s presence in this kitchen at this hour on this specific morning was not an accident.