I lie back against the pillows, heart racing. He follows, bracing his weight on his forearms so his body hovers over mine. He studies my face like he’s imprinting it into memory.
“I don’t want this to be a moment you regret.”
I shake my head. “I regret every second we wasted pretending we didn’t feel this.”
That pulls a sound from him—part laugh and part groan.
He kisses me again, deeper this time, slow and searching. My fingers slide into his hair, and the soft sound he makes against my mouth tells me he feels all of it too.
The world narrows to warmth and hands and breath and the impossible ache of wanting something I can’t keep.
When his lips trail down my neck, I realize something terrifying and beautiful:
This isn’t sex.
This is goodbye in slow motion.
His hands map my body like a man learning a country he’ll never be allowed to return to. Every touch says remember me. Every kiss says I’ll never get over you.
Just before he slides into me, he whispers against my throat?—
“I will spend the rest of my life wishing this night had been our beginning instead of our ending.”
And I know I will never walk away from this unchanged.
23
Lorenzo
I’ve become someone I don’t recognize.
By day, I’m the cold, polished Don everyone expects me to be. The man who says the right things to his fiancée, who sits in immaculate suits at doctor appointments while her mother beams like royalty as we hear our baby’s heartbeat for the first time. I nod at color schemes for my tux for the wedding. I pretend to care about China patterns for a reception I don’t want.
I even flew to Florida for a day to play golf with Fran’s father, smiling like I wasn’t dying inside with every swing.
I’ve perfected the role and perfected the lie.
But at night?
At night I am obsessed with Elizabeth.
We devour each other like the clock is bleeding out—like the thirty days we were given are slipping through our fingers faster than either of us can hold them. When I’m not inside of her, I’m thinking about her. Wanting her. Planning all the ways I’ll pull her into my arms the second I walk through the door.
I text her when I shouldn’t.
Late.
Early.
Between meetings.
One message, and she’s waiting for me when I get home all eager, breathless, warm in all the ways that undo me.
And God help me, every morning I watch her take the placebo pills she thinks are protecting her. I stand there, leaning against the bathroom doorframe like it’s nothing, while she swallows a lie I built with my own hands.
I tell myself I should stop. That a better man would switch the pills back. That fate doesn’t need any more tempting than I’ve already done.
But I don’t stop.
