He didn’t stop me.
And I didn’t look back.
But outside, the air felt different. Cooler. Or maybe that was just the hollow space I hadn’t noticed inside me until now.
14
Sebastian
I DIDN’T ASK HER TOstay because I didn’t want to risk saying something I’d regret.
Not because it wouldn’t be true, but because knowing Ruby as well as I did, I knew her besieged heart couldn’t hold what I might have said. Feelings—with a capital F—meant other F-words to her. Future. Forever.
Things she swore she didn’t want, wouldn’t do, and couldn’t care less about. “Maybe when I’m ninety,” she’d told me once. Once when I’d been on board.
But these days, I wanted all the F-words. Evenfamily.
I used to think deep feelings were noise. But she made them sound like music.
Ruby thought she’d only had my body. But somewhere between that first kiss and this very moment, I’d handed her my heart without even realizing it. And now, I wasn’t sure how to get it back.
So I rinsed her smell off my skin, and got into the bed that she’d picked, in a vacation cabin she’d designed, in a place that was entirelyher.
We had a lot of work ahead to save it.
15
Ruby
I DIDN’T FEEL ANYTHINGout of the ordinary.
If I did, I’d need to see a doctor.
That was what I told myself when I trudged back from cabin four to my cottage. And then again when I woke up. It was just post-orgasm brain fog. Just ... nothing that hadn’t happened before. With Sebastian. Because I couldn’t remember anyone else who ever made me question myself after a kiss. Anyone I’d wanted to stay.
We were just comfortable together, I told myself.
But you don’t run away from “comfortable,”I could hear Rio’s voice arguing in my head.
I stretched alone in my bed. Then alone in my shower. This was good. Boundaries. Space. Sanity. It wasn’t about me wanting him for more than we were.
Definitely not.
Absolutely not.
Dressed in my no-bullshit black slacks, short heels, and a dark gray, soft camisole, I headed straight out of my house and toward cabin four. We had work to do. A contractor to confront.
I stopped outside his door and picked up the breakfast basket Sandra had left. Still-warm pastries, a small jar of apricot jam, and a cold bottle of orange juice. I stared at it like it might hold the answers I was looking for, for questions I didn’t dare ask.
I knocked on his door.
I was fine.
Really.
I WAS TWENTY-FIVE ANDdrunk on my newfound freedom, happiness, and success.
The inn I’d been managing for four years had finally turned a real profit—enough to remodel, invest, and actually breathe. I’d just moved into the biggest cottage on the property, turned it into a cozy home, and for the first time ever, I didn’t have to share space with a roommate or my mom in Blueshore.
