Because this doesn’t feel like an ending.
Chapter
Eleven
MAVERICK
Aday and a half since I last saw Mia. It doesn’t mean I’ve stopped thinking.
About her.
About her situation.
About the manager whose pathological need for control keeps tightening.
I glance at my watch, wiping the sweat from my forehead. Eight-minute mile. Still not as long as eight seconds used to feel.
Dawn’s golden fingers peek through the dark sky, heat following close behind. Would rather be out riding this morning. But I need to hurt. To grind down the physical, to set hard boundaries that can’t be crossed.
Back at headquarters, where Grayson offered to let me crash, I shower in silence.
Steam clouds the glass, the sound of water a steady roar, but it does nothing to quiet my head. Or my body. I turn the faucet to cold and wait.
Mia is there anyway.
Golden curls brush her shoulders. The faintest hint of plum and roses—clean, soft, unmistakable. Her mouth, full and expressive, the kind that looks like it tells the truth even whenshe doesn’t mean to. Those green eyes that never quite stop watching, even when she’s trying to disappear.
I brace my hands against the tile, letting the cold water run down my back. My jaw tightens. My chest feels too full, like there’s no room left to breathe without giving something away.
I shouldn’t want this.
Shouldn’t want her.
But want doesn’t ask permission.
Heat coils low, sharp and unwelcome, a reminder that my body hasn’t gotten the memo about restraint or rules or consequences. I lean my forehead against the glass and close my eyes, breathing through it, refusing to move my hands, refusing the easy out.
I don’t take the edge off.
I don’t reach for anything but control.
Because wanting her like this—unfinished, unanswered—is the point. Anything else would be a lie. A way to pretend I can have part of her without choosing all of her.
The water turns cold. I welcome the bite. Let it burn. Let it remind me where the line is.
Still, her face lingers. The way she leaned back against me earlier, trusting without asking. The weight of that trust settles heavy in my chest.
I straighten, shut off the water, and grab a towel.
This doesn’t end here.
It can’t.
Between swigs of black coffee, I do a background check on Edwin. No arrests. No record. Mia Love’s manager for eight years.
Then, I search her name again, heart pumping as I type out the letters. I find her real name—Mia Lowell. Then, her parents. Divorced when she was ten.
Father’s name: Justin Lowell.
