Too steady.
Too dangerous.
I rinse my hair and tilt my face into the water, letting it beat down on me until my thoughts blur at the edges.
This is a bad idea, Nova.
This is such a bad idea.
I turn the water off, shivering as cold air hits my skin, and reach for the towel.
It’s thick. Clean. Soft enough to make me want to cry, which is a dramatic reaction to cotton, but I’ve had a dramatic day.
I wrap it around myself and just stand there for a second, staring at the bathroom mirror.
My cheeks are flushed from the heat. My eyelashes are clumped from steam. My freckles look darker. My eyes look too big.
I look like a girl playing grown-up.
I look like someone who has no business buying a man at an auction and following him into his cabin.
My stomach flips.
I glance at the counter, at my purse.
I have not let it out of my sight since the ATM.
It’s stupid. I know it’s stupid. It’s just cash. It’s just paper.
But it’s also my future.
It’s also my escape plan.
It’s also the thing my ex will lose his mind over if he realizes what I did.
I pick the purse up immediately, hook the strap around my wrist like I’m handcuffing myself to it, and crack the bathroom door open.
Warm air from the cabin brushes my damp skin. The fireplace pops somewhere. Nugget’s little nails click across the wood floor.
And then I hear Maverick’s voice, low and rough, like it belongs to the cabin.
“Nova.”
My heart jumps.
I freeze in the doorway, towel tight around my chest, purse clutched like a weapon.
“Yeah?” I call back, trying to sound normal, like I’m not one kind gesture away from falling in love with him forever.
Which is not a thing.
It cannot be a thing.
His voice comes again. “Bedroom.”
I step out into the hall, moving carefully because I’m barefoot and the floor is warm under my feet, which is another detail my brain wants to cling to because it is soft and domestic and my life is not.
The bedroom door is open.
