“We pretend this never happened?” I ask. It’s what I asked him after he held me through my panic attack. We’ve never been good at letting each other see our weakness.
There’s a long pause. “Yes,” he says. “That’s probably for the best.”
“Yeah.” I press a hand against my breastbone. My heart is beating steadily behind it. More steadily than I would have expected. I haven’t had another bout of panic since the wedding dress fitting.
Nights are usually tough. Somehow I know this one won’t be.
“Good night,” he says.
I turn onto my side and catch the scent of him. I don’tknow whether it’s from the T-shirt I’ve stolen or him, lying beside me, sharing the same bed.
“Good night,” I whisper.
CHAPTER 43
PAIGE
I wake up to a warm arm around my waist and perfect stillness in my mind. There’s not a single thought. No anxiety, no headache, not even a hangover.
Rafe is sleeping soundly behind me. I can hear his deep, steady breathing.
I look over my shoulder. He looks calm, too. Face relaxed and handsome and hair mussed.
We shouldn’t cuddle. Those were the rules.
But this is the second time we’ve ended up doing it.
I slip out from his side and rummage through my bag for workout clothes. He doesn’t stir. No wonder. He must be tired from last night.
Heat climbs up my cheeks, and it’s not just from pulling on the tight leggings. I’m not shy in bed. Seeking pleasure has always been one of the few times when I feel perfectly, incandescently in tune with my body. Fully in the moment.
I’m out of the moment now.
And remembering his hot eyes on mine, watching me make myself come as he finished one final time.
I glance back at the bed. His hair is dark against the whitepillows. There’s a small part of me that wants to climb back into the bed and see what happens when he wakes up.
But the larger part of me is reeling. I haven’t been close to someone in so, so long. It feels terrifying. And while we have a fragile truce and vulnerable moments in the dark, nothing’s fundamentally changed between us.
I’m still resentful of the position he put us in with Mather & Wilde. He’s still smug and superior. I need to find my way back to our easy argumentative banter.
I slip out of the hotel room for a run around Monte Carlo.
The lobby is already buzzing with people. I smile hello to one of the attendants and walk down wide stone steps to the plaza.
It doesn’t help that I’m starting to feel at home with his friends and his sister, too. I wish I didn’t crave it so very much. The feeling of belonging somewhere.
I turn onto the street parallel with the park. I should’ve brought my headphones. They help drown out the noise of my own thoughts when they’re more than I can stand.
I’ll have to run fast enough to drown them out instead.
“Paige,” a hurried voice says. A man falls into step beside me, familiar beneath a baseball cap with the wordsCape Annon it.
My uncle.
“Paige, there you are.Finally.”
My feet root to the ground, and panic floods me. He looks so familiar to me. The same as he did when he told me we should burn Mather & Wilde to the ground so Rafe’s shares become valueless.
