Hou Yi knew Phillipa was serious. As he stepped back from Anna, she stretched lazily beneath the sheets and looked at him with quiet determination.
“Yi, come back to bed,” she said softly. “I just want to stay here with you a little longer. I feel safe here.”
“Anna,” Hou Yi replied, brushing a hand through his hair, “Phillipa has already made her way in and is downstairs in the lounge. She said that if I didn’t go down to speak with her in the next fifteen or twenty minutes, she would come upstairs and pound on the door until we both woke up. I need to shower and go deal with her. Take your time.”
Anna pushed herself upright and reached for his phone before he could say anything else.
“No. I’m going to speak to her myself and tell her we’ll both come down in about thirty minutes. I need a little more time with you before we face her.”
She dialed immediately.
When Phillipa answered, her voice came through sharp and impatient. “Yi, I’m not giving you any more time. You now have thirteen minutes.”
“Phillipa, it’s Anna.”
There was a pause.
“Sorry, Anna. I thought it was that idiot husband of yours calling.”
“Not a problem,” Anna said evenly. “Yi told me you wanted him downstairs right away. I don’t want to be alone, so we’ll both come down in about thirty minutes or so. In the meantime, the staff can organise something for you to eat and drink, and something for us when we join you. Please enjoy whatever you like. And by the way, don’t come upstairs pounding on our door.”
Without waiting for a reply, Anna ended the call.
Then she stood and walked over to Hou Yi. For a moment she simply looked at him. His expression told her everything he could not quite say aloud.
“I really would love more time alone with you,” Anna admitted, her voice quieter now. “I need it. But let’s at least enjoy a shower together, even if it has to be shorter than either of us wants.”
Hou Yi stared at her, caught between hope and caution. Part of him wanted to believe this moment meant more than it seemed, that maybe she was opening her heart to him in the way he had long wished for. Another part of him knew she was still hurting from the night before, and he did not want to mistake tenderness for certainty.
Still, he could not deny what this moment meant to him.
Anna reached for his hand and led him toward the bathroom.
Their time was short. She knew that. If the world were different, she might have stayed there with him for hours, shutting out everything waiting below. But the world was not different, and neither was her fear that what she felt for him might never be fully returned.
As they stepped into the bathroom, Anna’s thoughts drifted, unwillingly, to her marriage with Lu Jinhu. With him, closeness had never felt like warmth. It had felt like obligation, routine, and silence. Nothing more. But with Hou Yi, even the briefest touch seemed to carry patience, attention, and care. He noticed what she felt before she found words for it, and that alone had changed something deep inside her.
Yet she was afraid.
Afraid that Hou Yi was only being gentle because he felt sorry for her.
Afraid that whatever existed between them might disappear as suddenly as it had begun.
So she told herself she had to treasure every moment she was given. If nothing else, the memory of this time would remain with her.
Hou Yi turned on the shower, and the warm water filled the room with mist.
Anna tried to shake away her thoughts. If she could not hold on to certainty, then perhaps she could hold on to this — a few quiet minutes, a few honest ones.
She reached for the shower gel and smiled faintly, letting herself become playful for the first time that morning. She stepped closer, her hands gliding lightly over his arms, then across his shoulders, teasing him just enough to make him laugh under his breath.
Hou Yi understood her mood at once. He picked up her shampoo and, with a tenderness that seemed almost at odds with everything else he was, began working it carefully through her hair. His fingers moved slowly, unhurried, as though he wanted to turn even this ordinary gesture into something she would remember.
Anna leaned into him, feeling some of the tension leave her body.
When he rinsed the shampoo away and reached for the conditioner, she turned back toward him and rose on her toes to kiss him. What began as playful quickly became something deeper, though still wrapped in the soft hush of water and steam.
For a moment she tried to take the lead, wanting to give him something of the comfort he had so often given her.
But Hou Yi gently stopped her.
“Yi, I wanted to—”
“Hush,” he said, his voice low and warm. “We’re doing this together.”
Then he drew her fully into his arms.
He lifted her easily, and she instinctively wrapped herself around him as he backed them toward the tiled wall. The water ran over both of them, warm and steady, while the rest of the morning — Phillipa downstairs, the tension waiting beyond the door, all of it — seemed to fall away for just a little while.
What followed belonged only to them, unspoken and intimate, held in silence rather than words.