I flip him off weakly and head down the hall, the blanket slipping from my shoulders as I go.
Behind me, Derek’s voice follows, low and steady.
“Take your time, Audra.”
I think I will.
Chapter Sixteen
AUDRA
The shower helps.
Not in the magical, movie way where water fixes trauma and the world resets to normal. But it rinses off the sticky residue of the club—smoke, sweat, other people’s perfume—and it gives me ten uninterrupted minutes where my body is mine again.
I stand under the rainfall head in Derek’s guest shower and let the heat pound the tension out of my shoulders. I wash my hair twice. I scrub my skin harder than necessary. When I finally shut the water off, my fingers are pruned and my thoughts are… not clearer, exactly, but less jagged.
Still here, I remind myself.
Still me.
The guest bathroom feels like a boutique hotel. Thick towels. Neutral tones. Everything arranged with that careful, controlled precision that screams Derek Pierce even when he’s not in the room.
There’s a drawer like Alex said—unopened toothbrushes, travel-size toothpaste, even a tiny bottle of mouthwash. I stare at it for a second, caught between amusement and something softer.
He plans for guests.
He plans for everything.
And yet last night, the only thing he seemed to plan for was me being safe.
I rinse my mouth, brush my teeth, then stare at my reflection again.
My eyes are still a little slow, the fog lingering at the edges. But I don’t look like a woman who almost lost control of her life in a VIP club bathroom.
I look like… me. Just a version of me that slept in a CEO’s bed-adjacent guest room and doesn’t know what to do with that information.
The Cambridge t-shirt is still on the counter, folded now, clean enough to pretend it’s normal. Derek’s robe hangs from a hook, waiting.
I tug it on anyway, because I’m not emotionally prepared to walk through his house in nothing but a towel, and also because the robe still feels like armor.
When I step into the hallway, the house is quiet again—house-quiet, the kind that doesn’t shush you but holds space for you.
Muted voices drift from the kitchen.
Mark’s voice: “—telling you, if she stays, you’re going to get weird.”
Alex’s: “He’s already weird.”
Derek’s voice cuts in, low and controlled. “I am not weird.”
Mark: “You’re hovering.”
Derek: “I’m not.”
Alex: “You re-filled her apple juice like it was a hostage negotiation.”
Mark: “You washed your shoes. Twice.”
