“So, we’re good?” I tried to sound nonchalant, like I hadn’t just nearly unravelled in front of her.
She bobbed her head before slipping past me, that cloud of sweet vanilla and deep jasmine trailing with her. “Depends. Where did we land on the whole me coming to London with you?”
I narrowed my eyes as I followed her down the steps. “What would you do otherwise?”
She shrugged, leaning against the car door, canvas wrapped in her arms, like it wasn’t my name on the insurance. “Probably still go. Looks like it’s turning into a group trip anyway.” Those eyes glinted with mischief. “So you can take me with you whether you like it or not.”
Exasperation curled through me, but under it was something else. Admiration. Want. The terrifying realisation that this girl would never make things easy—and that I didn’t want her to.
“I like you like this,” I muttered before I could stop myself.
Her laugh was soft and bright. Dangerous. “Like what?”
I took the lilies gently from her hands, holding them like the fragile excuse they were, before forcing myself to look at her smile. My chest tightened, the truth burning up my throat.
“You.”
Her brows arched, smug, lips curving. “Marcus Romano likes me? Is this what power feels like?”
I let out a low laugh, shaking my head. “No, Holland. Power’s what it would take to walk away from me. And we both know I won’t let you do that.”
Her smile tilted—not a victory, not quite—but something knowing. Like she’d already figured out the rules of a game I hadn’t even admitted I was playing.
She turned away with that slow, unhurried sway that made everything in me go painfully still. I stayed where I was, flowers limp at my side, feeling a little foolish and completely gone.
This should’ve been simple. Staying stony and impartial to who she was and what she liked was always rule number one. I was treating that rule like a suggestion, and only when I caught myself hanging onto the very last seconds of her smile did I realise that maybe I needed to recite my rules more often.
She was right. At the end of the day, we were the guarded and the guarded. Two completely separate things. And if I wanted to keep her safe, then that was how we had to remain. Ineeded to pack these feelings into something small and sealed. Store it somewhere dark and sensible.
It was what I did with Lana, and now Cora's box, the one that had to remain closed, had to make a home there too.
Whether it was killing me or not.
chapter twenty two
i heart ldn
London was another one of my first loves.
It was hard not to be. Romance practically hung in the air no matter where you were. It had a certain magic to it that kept pulling you back until you realised that you’d never find a city that made you fall in love quite like London did.
It was in the way the sun would set. It was in the freshly painted phone booths. It lingered in Kensington Gardens and flowed through every line of the Tube. It was a hive mind of love, and I felt it all over again when we landed last night.
And one of my favorite things was seeing other people discover it it too.
“Guys! Come on. It’s just a giant Ferris wheel. No—no, Finn, that’s a tour group. Do you want to get lost again?”
Although, honestly, I wished they’d fall in love with it in an timely fashion.
“But I want to go on it!” Finn called back, twisting around to look at me as he tried to wedge himself through the sea of tourists. Camera round his neck. Unfolded map stuck in his hands.
I shook my head and lifted my hands in surrender. “If you’re happy paying fifty quid to be trapped in a greenhouse with thirty strangers for half an hour, then by all means, be my guest.”
Common sense flickered in his eyes, and he pulled back with a sheepish grin, beginning to walk back over to me.
“He’s learning!” I beamed, looping my arms around his neck in a quick hug before tugging us back into the group. “Now I just have to make sure you don’t get scammed into buying overpriced keyrings—” My words cut off as my gaze dropped to the trinket in his hand. “What isthat?”
His face lit up. “Key chain. Says ‘I Heart London.’”
