‘I just…’ She swallowed. ‘I just want to be held.’
His expression shifted, something like relief flashing there. ‘Holding is good. I can do holding.’
‘I’ll just text and let Jen know where I am,’ she said a few minutes later, when they’d raided his fridge for cheese and crackers and were back on the sofa. Music played low in the background, a lazy jazz playlist she suspected was his default.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Family?’
‘Family,’ she confirmed, aware she owed him nothing but wanting him to understand, anyway. ‘If I vanish without a trace, they form a search party.’
She tapped out a message.
Playing away, sis! I have a surname for you now: Oliver Perry-Warnes. I’m at his place in the apartments on the quay. I’ll be back bright and early for work. Over and out. Love you xx
She hit send, then looked over at Oliver and sighed. He was watching her with that attentive, steady focus she’d already discovered was disconcertingly addictive.
He was everything she’d dreamed of in a man. Confident. Gorgeous. Funny. Sharp. For so long she’d kept herself apart, too scared of being hurt to risk it. But Oliver wasn’t pushing her into anything. He’d literally offered her holding as an option. No pressure. No agenda.
At least not one he was putting on her.
She knew he had a past. She suspected he had demons. A step at a time — not flinging herself into something, but edging closer — felt doable.
She smiled, caught his eye, and turned off her phone. She wouldn’t be needing it for the rest of the night.
The conversation drifted, easing in and out between stretches of comfortable silence as the music filled the spaces. At some point she shifted, curling against his side. His arm came around her automatically, his hand resting warm and secure on her shoulder.
Lucy’s eyes grew heavier. Lulled by the gentle slap of water against the piles outside the open window, the murmur of the music and the sense of being held and cocooned in his warmth, she let herself drift.
* * *
The clouds had cleared, and the moon had risen, casting a pale path across the harbour. Through the uncurtained glass, the light bathed the room in silver.
Oliver sat very still, acutely aware of the woman tucked against his side.
He had never sat on this sofa past midnight with a beautiful woman fully dressed and asleep in his arms. That alone was different. But the bigger difference was inside him.
He watched the moonlight slide across the dark water, catching on the moving shapes of boats in the marina and the faint outline of hills beyond. He probed his feelings, a habit he generally avoided because it never ended well.
This time was no exception.
There was a connection between them he couldn’t deny. Worse, he knew she felt it too. He’d seen it in the way her face had softened when she’d admitted to not wanting to be hurt. He’d felt it in the way she’d relaxed against him now, trusting enough to sleep.
And that, he knew with the cold clarity that always sat at his core, was the variable that changed everything.
Because this time, if he wasn’t careful, it wouldn’t end well for her.
He eased his arm from beneath Lucy’s head, replacing it with a soft cushion. She stirred only slightly. Her lips curved faintly, as if whatever she was dreaming about was kind.
She looked peaceful, unaware.
Maybe it would be better if it stayed that way.
He had meant this to be simple. Find the ringleader. Charm her. Use her influence with the community to get what he needed for his real project. The Old Colonial Hotel was supposed to be just another asset. A box to be ticked and moved on from.
Instead, he’d complicated his life. Badly.
* * *
Lucy woke to pale light and the smell of fresh coffee.
