“Then you’re lying,” he snarls.
Silence crashes between us.
My breath is a thin, trembling thing.
He steps closer again, towering over me, the early-morning light slicing across his face and casting half of it in bright, perfect gold and the other half in shadow.
“Do you know what I think?” he says quietly.
Too quietly.
Deadly quiet.
I can’t speak.
I can barely breathe.
“I think,” he murmurs, “you’re cracking under pressure and making up fantasies to justify your behaviour.”
I shake my head rapidly, terror clawing up my chest.
“No. Noah, no, I swear?—”
“And I think,” he says, as if I hadn’t spoken at all, “you’re going to ruin this week if you don’t get your head straight.”
Tears blur my vision.
He tilts his head the same way he did the first night we met — that eerie, thoughtful angle, like he’s studying a painting he might set on fire.
“You’re going to marry me on Sunday,” he says, voice soft and poisonous. “And I won’t tolerate emotional theatrics until then.”
I choke on a sob.
“Noah…”
He turns away.
Just turns.
Smooth, controlled, dismissive.
Like I’m a nuisance.
An inconvenience.
A problem to shelve until he’s in the mood to fix it.
“Get dressed,” he says, already walking toward the bathroom. “We have a full day ahead.”
“Noah—!”
He stops in the doorway without turning around.
“You mention this ‘blindfold’ again…” His voice drops to a low, icy whisper. “…and I will drag you back home tonight. And you will marry me in the fucking courthouse on Monday.”
My blood goes cold.
He steps into the bathroom.
