“Hey.”His deep tone saves me from the spiral, and his hand cups my jaw, turning my face toward his.In the dim light from the city, his eyes are dark but potent.Seeing me.
“I can hear you thinking,” he says quietly.“Constructing walls between us.”
“I don’t?—”
“You do.You’re cataloging why this was a mistake.Why I’ll lose interest now that the chase is over, or maybe you’re reeling over professionalism.”His thumb traces my cheekbone.“Three years, Brie.Do you know how many women I could have had in three years?How many I did have?”
The words sting, but he doesn’t let me look away.
“None of them were you.Not because you walked away—because of who you were before you left.The woman who told me she didn’t know how to stop pretending.”His forehead touches mine.“You’re not pretending now.That’s what I’ve been looking for.That’s what I want more of.”
He stands, reaching down to help me up.“Come with me.I’m going to clean you up, take you to my bed, and then we’re taking our time.I’m going to show you just how much I’ve thought of you these past few years.”And the tremor in his voice is what finally undoes me.
ChapterFifteen
Adrien
“I can’t.”
Two words—soft, almost apologetic—yet they split something in me open.
“We should’ve used a condom.”Not caution—distance.
I apologized.She brushed it off, said she was on birth control, that it was fine,that it was what we should have done.But the subtext lingered:you came too close.
Watching her gather herself, I felt her vanish in increments—the closing of a clasp, the whisper of fabric sliding over skin, the distance forming with every deliberate motion.The woman who’d just come undone beneath me was gone.Not regret—defense.Replaced by the professional—calm, contained, unreachable.
She’d agreed to stay the night.Then she didn’t.My fault—too much, too soon.And the way she left… no kiss, no backward glance, her steps soft, quick, final.
My pen taps against the desk, an impatient metronome keeping time with regret.I’ve commanded boardrooms, steered acquisitions worth millions, but I can’t stop fixating on the sound of her heels fading.
After Monaco, I told myself the connection was fantasy.The perfect weekend, the perfect woman.Gilded memory.Lust painted over with longing.But now she’s back—real, tangible, breathing the same New York air as I am.
I know her name now.I know where she lives.I could find her if I wanted.But what would that accomplish?
I used to pride myself on simplicity.No entanglements.No emotional risk.Relationships were convenient arrangements, easily concluded.But with her…simplicity feels like fiction.
I close my eyes.I can still smell her on my skin—amber and something faintly floral, like a memory that refuses to fade.I see flashes of her—blue eyes against the night, the tremor in her breath when I touched her, the way she softened for a heartbeat before she shuttered herself again.She’s in my bloodstream.My control—mydiscipline—is unraveling.
A month ago, the idea of anything long-term with an American woman would have made me laugh.Now I can’t even define what I want—only that it’s her.
Yes, I spend half the year in New York, but my life is flight paths and transatlantic calls.I belong more to the sky than to any city.If I pursue her—if I break through those walls she rebuilds the second they crack—what would that give us?What would it cost her?
There’s no denying I lust after her.I swear to God she’severywhereand she has been for years.When I see a blonde on the street, I think of her.When I order a croissant, I wonder what she’d choose.I sit here at my desk, supposed to be reviewing financial reports and staff notes, yet my body betrays me—half-hard, restless, remembering the sound of her moan.When I close my eyes, I see her irises—blue and devastating.She’s got me completely off balance.
I lean back, exhaling, the leather creaking beneath my shoulders.I should be focused on strategy, not the ache she left behind.But the mind is a weak steward when desire has taken the reins.
Madame Vassante’s voice returns, smoke and prophecy in the air of her Paris flat.The Fool.Death.The Tower.
Three cards, drawn in a room scented with mysticism and age.“Major upheaval,” she’d said, tapping the Tower.“Everything you think you know will be challenged.”
I’d smiled politely, paid, kissed both her cheeks.A bit of Parisian theatre, I’d thought.But the older I get, the more I wonder if she wasn’t reading the cards so much asme.
The Fool—new beginnings, leaps of faith.
Death—transformation, not loss.
The Tower—destruction that clears the way for truth.
