I blink at him. “You’re aware you’re talking about plants, right?”
He gives me a look. “You haven’t met my sister.”
That earns a small smile from me as I step farther inside. There are several rows of vibrantly colored orchids and some other tropical greenery I can’t quite pinpoint. Not too many plants, but certainly more than I would expect for a man who is barely ever home.
“She owns a floral shop in New York,” he adds, already reaching for his jacket. “This is her idea of bonding. She sends me increasingly high-maintenance plants just to see if I’ll say no.”
“You don’t,” I guess.
He snorts. “I don’t. I just got her back into my life, and any way I can keep in contact with her is fine by me. Even if it means looking after plants like they’re kids.”
It fits him in a strange way—duty disguised as tolerance. I tuck the detail away without knowing why it feels important.
“I’ll be gone for a few days,” he says. “You don’t have to stay long when you come. Just keep them alive.”
“I’ll do my best,” I promise.
He hands me the keys and tells me I can lock up when I’m done before heading out the door. I decided to stay back and familiarize myself with the plants and their schedules, and by the time I’m ready to go, it’s already dark outside.
I pull my jacket tighter around myself, hunching my shoulders against the evening chill. I check my phone without really thinking about it.
Nothing new.
That’s not unusual but it still irritates me.
It’s been nearly a week since Zane has crashed into my life and stirred it up in ways I would never have imagined possible. Now, I can’t imagine a night without his voice in my ears, filling my dark room, guiding me as I touch myself to ecstasy.
Yet, he won’t meet me in person.
I grip the steering wheel harder than necessary as I drive home, frustration buzzing under my skin. I know he’s been watching me. I know he’s been inside my apartment while I sleep. I know because sometimes, I feel the faint brush of lips against my forehead. And sometimes, I wake up to the scent of him lingering in the air. Other times, he leaves behind small offerings—coffee, pastries, chocolate—proof he was real and not something I imagined…
But he’s always gone before I wake. I’m tired of it. I’m tired of waiting. I don’t like being kept at a distance. Not when everything else about him feels so close. Not when he knows the rhythm of my days better than anyone ever has.
Maybe that’s why I lingered at Mick’s. Maybe I wanted to shake-up my routine to shake-up Zane’s…to make him wonder where I was, who I was with. Maybe it will make himfinallywant to see me for real, be with me for real.
I replay it all as I take the last turn that leads to my apartment…The timing of the letters. The way they’re always there when I get home, never early, never late. The care in his handwriting. The certainty… He’s methodical. Predictable in the way careful people are. Which means he can be caught.
The thought settles slowly in my chest, not as excitement, but as resolve. I don’t need to confront him. I don’t need to demand anything. I just need to disrupt the pattern. Be somewhere unexpected at an unexpected time…
The thought excites me more than it should, and by the time I reach my building, I’m bubbling with giddiness. I feel oddly light, energized by the plan forming quietly in my head. I ride the elevator up, listening to the hum of it, wondering if he’s watching right now.
Not that I’d mind.
When I unlock my door, the apartment is dark.
Too dark.
I reach for the switch on instinct, but the lights don’t come on. I try another. Still nothing. A ripple of unease moves through me, not fear, exactly, but awareness. The building has power. The elevator worked. So this isn’t random.
I step inside slowly, keeping one hand against the wall, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness. The air feels different…charged with something achingly familiar.
Suddenly, a small lamp clicks on.
It’s low, angled upward, illuminating the lower half of a man seated in a chair in my living room.
My breath catches hard enough to hurt, and for a split second, my instinct flares, my body bracing for danger, but it dissolves almost immediately into something else—a mixture ofrecognition, relief and anticipation sharp enough to make my fingers curl.
There’s only one person this could be.
