“I need something.” He kept his voice low, barely above a breath. “A dress.”
A beat of silence before she carefully clarified, “A dress?”
“Sized to tribute 1922. And flats. Something comfortable.”
The pause that followed was dense with questions she knew better than to ask. But he could hear them accumulating in the silence, stacking like cards in that shrewd mind of hers.
“I’ll have it sent within the quarter hour.”
“Leave it outside the door of my suite. Don’t knock.”
“Understood.” Another pause. “Jack?”
“Yes.”
“She’s a good one.”
He ended the call without responding.
He returned to the bed. Daisy lay on her stomach now, cheek pressed to the pillow, arms folded beneath it. The blanket barely covered her hips, the shifting light from the balcony doors traced the valley of her spine in liquid silver soon to become gold.
“Daisy.” He spoke her name the way one speaks in churches, softly, with reverence.
She stirred, murmuring something unintelligible, burrowing deeper.
He brushed a strand of hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear. “It’s time to wake up.”
Her lashes fluttered. A crease formed between her brows as consciousness returned in reluctant stages, and then her eyes opened, unfocused and warm with sleep. She looked up at him and smiled.
That smile.
Every single time, it detonated something in his chest. Not because it was beautiful, though it was. Not because it was kind, though that too. But because it was reflexive. Involuntary. She saw his face, and her first instinct was joy, and no amount of self-loathing or logic could reconcile that with what he knew himself to be.
“Is it morning?” she murmured, voice raspy with sleep.
“Almost.” Leaning closer, he pressed his lips to hers.
She tasted like champagne and warmth and a future he hadn’t earned.
When he pulled back, her hand found his jaw, her thumb grazing the stubble there. “How much time do we have?”
“We have a little while still, but not much.”
He slid one arm beneath her knees, the other around her back, and lifted her from the bed. She made a small, startled sound, then relaxed, resting her head against his shoulder. Her bare skin was warm through his jacket and shirt.
The scent of her hair filled his lungs. He could drown in that scent and die a happy man.
“Where are we going?” she asked, the words still sleepy.
“Shower.”
He carried her into the bathroom, set a folded, heated towel on the marble vanity, and sat her down gently. Her bare legs dangled like a child’s.
She looked up at him with sleepy curiosity, her gaze tracking him as he reached into the enclosed shower and turned the taps. Water thundered against stone as steam climbed, stealing the chill from the air.
Jack turned his back to the shower and faced her with unflinching purpose. This room seemed to be a temple of truth for them, a place where they faced the wreckage and learned how to move on. Together.
He shouldered off his jacket and draped it over a hook. His fingers found the top button of his shirt, and the tremor started immediately. Not in his hands, but deeper, in a place where muscle met bone and memory lived like rot in the walls of an old house.
