It’s a dumb smile. One of those I have zero control over, tugging at the corners of my mouth without permission.
“You do realize you’ve got a total idiot look on your face, right?”
My head snaps up.
Grace is curled up in the armchair across from me, wrapped in a gray wool blanket I’m pretty sure she stole from Dominic’s linen closet. She’s cradling a mug of hot tea and wearing an expression that’s half amused, half world-weary in a way no eighteen-year-old should be.
She looks better. Her color’s mostly back, though her eyes are still a little puffy. But she’s safe. And she’s here.
I lock my phone and drop it on the coffee table, trying to rearrange my features into tough, unbothered male athlete.
“I do not have an idiot look. I have the look of a man handling complex business.”
Grace snorts into her tea. “Yeah, sure. Complex business whose name is Sloane Heart.”
“We’re organizing work stuff.”
“Mmm-hmm. Since when does ‘work stuff’ make you smile like that? Usually when you talk to Nate you look like a man about to get a colonoscopy without anesthesia.”
I laugh, dragging a hand through my hair. “Nate is different. Nate stresses me out. Sloane…”
I stop.
Sloane stresses me out too. Drives me insane. Pushes every button I have.
But she also makes me feel alive.
“Sloane what?” Grace pushes, setting her mug down. She leans forward, those hazel eyes—so much like mine—laser-focused on my face. “You like her.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Cohen, come on. I saw you the other night. When you brought me here. I saw the way you looked at her before you went upstairs.”
She smirks.
“And she helped you. She drove your car. She took care of us. She wouldn’t have done all that if you were just a client.”
“That’s how she is. She fixes things. She takes care of everyone.”
“Or maybe,” Grace says, that sly little smile deepening, “she likes you too. And you’re completely, totally gone for her.”
I shoot up from the couch, suddenly restless. I walk over to the big window that looks out over Dom’s snow-covered backyard. Everything out there is white, still, and perfect.
The exact opposite of the chaos in my head.
“I’m not ‘gone,’ Grace. And I don’t want to be. I don’t want ties. You know that.”
“Why?”
Her voice floats over from behind me—soft, but relentless.
“You know why.”
I turn to look at her.
“I’m not built for relationships. I’m a mess. I’m good at blowing things up, running away, pissing people off… not at staying. Not at building anything.”
Grace shakes her head. “Stop playing the idiot, Co. No one’s buying it except the people who read tabloids for fun.”
