Elara Vance loved her quiet life. She worked in the deepest corner of the university library, a place where the air always smelled of vanilla-aged paper and old glue. Her job was to fix torn pages and broken book spines. She liked paper more than people. Paper was predictable. Paper was silent. Paper never asked annoying questions or made her feel small.
Then came Julian.
He was a tall researcher with a messy wool scarf and a smile that seemed far too bright for a room meant for whispering. On his first day, he didn't just sit down; he clattered. He dropped his bag, pulled out his chair, and stared directly at Elara.
Elara didn't look up. She kept her eyes on the 18th-century manuscript she was cleaning. But Julian didn't care about the "Quiet Please" signs. He leaned over the table, his shadow falling across her work, and whispered, "You know, you handle those pages so gently. It's like you're touching a cloud. It makes me wish I was an old, dusty book so you'd hold me like that."
Elara's hand slipped. Her heart gave a sudden, angry jump. she looked at him with a cold, hard stare. "This is a restricted library, Mr. Thorne. Please work in absolute silence. And please... don't be weird."
Julian didn't look insulted. He just grinned, showing a dimple that Elara refused to find cute. "I'm not being weird," he whispered back. "I'm just being honest. It's very hard to focus on ancient history when the most beautiful girl in the world is sitting three feet away, looking like a grumpy angel."
Elara went back to her work without a word, but her face stayed hot for the rest of the afternoon.