I'm going to stop talking now.
His almost-smile spreads into something real. Something that makes my stomach flip.
"Warm," he repeats.
"Forget I said anything."
"I don't think I will."
"Can we start this conversation over?"
"No."
"You're enjoying this."
"Very much."
I want to bury my face in the pillow, but that would require breaking eye contact, and somehow I can't make myself do that either.
“Can we pretend the last sixty seconds didn’t happen?”
“Never.”
But he’s smiling at me when he says this, and my heart...it just can’t bear how beautiful he looks right now.
Is this man truly my husband?
The thought hits differently in daylight. Last night, wrapped in darkness and his hands and that strange magic of becoming, it felt like a dream. Something happening outside of time. But now the sun is streaming through the windows, and his eyes are gold in the light, and I just...
I still can’t believe it.
This man is my husband.
But...
This man also harbors suspicions about someone sending me.
Who sent you, Bailey?
The question from last night echoes in my chest. He asked it in the dark, after everything, when I was still drifting in that hazy space between consciousness and sleep. I pretended not to hear. Pretended I'd already fallen asleep.
But I heard.
And I don't know how to answer him with words he'd believe.
BREAKFAST ARRIVES ONa silver tray: croissants, fresh fruit, coffee that smells like heaven. We eat together—him scanning documents, me trying not to stare at the way his fingers hold a pen.
I check my phone while he reviews a second stack of papers. Force of habit. My audiobook app is still open toOlympus Bewitched,paused mid-chapter from—
From before. From my old life. From the last time I needed a door out.
"What is that?"
I look up. Devyn's eyes are on my screen, on the book cover with Blair's silhouette and the shadowy figure of a man behind her.
"Just an audiobook. I've listened to it a million times."
“Because it’s hard to understand?”
