Her nails dragged down his spine. Her gasp turned into a sob. He didn’t stop moving until she shattered around him, and he followed her over the edge.
Their bodies stayed joined, chest to chest, breath to breath, like neither of them could separate yet.
Then he leaned in, voice low at her ear. “Don’t let him near you like that again.”
Bea heard thepleasehe couldn’t say.
RAFAEL
The office door clicked shut.
Rafael stayed where he was, in his office chair, the city stretched out in sharp lights behind him. He watched Gage cross the room, each step heavy with intent, until they stood a few feet apart. Only his desk separated them.
Gage spoke first. “You crossed a line.”
Rafael tipped his head slightly. “Seemed harmless to me. Checking in.”
Gage’s expression was cool but the tension in his body spoke volumes. “You showed up at her door. At night. When you knew I wasn’t there.” The words dropped between them like stones. “Stay away from her, Griffin. Or we’re going to have problems.”
King had a way of understating.
Rafael let a slow breath slide out between his teeth. He didn’t smile. Didn’t argue. “You’re going to guard her night and day?”
“She won’t be there anymore.”
Of course not. Because he’d moved her in with him.
“And if she comes to me?”
Gage’s mouth tightened almost imperceptibly. “She won’t.”
It wasn’t bluster; it was certainty. The kind that came from building walls around something you weren’t prepared to lose.
A long pause stretched between them. Then Gage turned and left without another word, the door clicking shut behind him.
Rafael stood, restless, and moved toward the boxing bag in the corner of his office.
Instinct had driven him to Bea. He’d needed to know she was okay. To push her to tell King the truth about what was happening inside Monaghan & Stowe. What had been happening for over a year.
Instead, she’d only told Gage he had been at the pool house. Because she wanted to be honest with him, but still protect him.
Rafael picked up his wraps and slowly wound them around his hands. The fabric rasped against his skin. A ritual. A tether. To contain the fire, and to control where it landed.
He should’ve been surprised. A part of him was. But the part that had been watching her from the start, wasn’t. Now he saw her even more clearly.
She carried more than her share without saying it aloud. Because to her, that’s what love looked like.
Bea’s pain, Bea herself, would always pull at him. Even when she didn’t ask. Even when it cost him ground.
Maybe the visit had driven her deeper into Gage’s world. Maybe it had been a mistake. But Rafael knew if it came to it, he’d do it again.
Chapter Ten
Bea was nothing if not a glass-half-full kind of girl.
Georgina would be back from Europe on Saturday, returning to their shared on-campus apartment in Mayfield Hall. Classes at St. Ives resumed Monday.
That gave Bea six nights with Gage. She wasn’t going to waste them pouting.
