Atlas doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even glance back. Just flips something in the pan with infuriating ease, like this is just another morning, like me standing here in his kitchen isn’t messing with my head.

“I let you sleep in, sweetheart. If I waited any longer, you’d have starved.”

I roll my eyes, but my stomach betrays me, twisting at the scent of toast, eggs, something buttery and rich that makes my mouth water.

“So that stomach grumble is . . . because I’m loud?”

I snort because, seriously, he’s impossible.

“Why don’t you make yourself some of that ginger tea that’s supposed to be good for . . . what was it?” he asks, frowning slightly like he’s actually trying to remember. Which is ridiculous because he’s the one who keeps buying every single thing he reads or hears might help with pregnancy symptoms.

Ginger. Chamomile. Peppermint.

Half of them he’s already forgotten the purpose of, but he keeps bringing them home anyway.

I don’t like that.

I don’t like any of this.

How much he cares because it makes me feel things.

I move on autopilot, grabbing the tea from the cabinet, filling the electric kettle he got me—because, of course, he got me one. So the water boils faster for you, he’d said, like he wasn’t being the most thoughtful man on the fucking planet.

I shouldn’t care.

Not about the way he moves around the kitchen like he belongs there. Like he belongs here.

Not about the way his voice dips when he calls me sweetheart like he knows exactly what it does to me.

Not about the fact that he’s shirtless now.

Wait.

What?

I blink, my brain short-circuiting. When did that happen?

Because he wasn’t when I walked in, I know that for a fact because I spent way too much time staring at the way his shirt clung to his back.

Now, it’s slung over the back of a chair, leaving hard muscle and ink on full display. And, fuck, I’m staring.

I should look away.

But I don’t.

It’s impossible to.

The tattoos stretch across his shoulders, dip along his ribs, dark ink against warm skin. Some are intricate, carefully drawn, others look like they were added later, layered over old scars.

They shouldn’t be attractive. Not to me.

My parents used to say tattoos were trashy. That only people with no class would have them. I never understood. But I believed them, the way kids believe everything they’re told—until college. That’s when I realized my parents—and the people around them—were just judgmental assholes who had no idea what the fuck they were talking about.