But I wasn’t sure I was. I was splitting open. And the fear of what came after—the one I’d tried to push off before—was crashing in.
“Come here,” he whispered, his arms wide. I leaned forward onto Mitchell’s body, my ear against his chest, his arms encircling me in a world of protection.
The soft thud of his heart felt so reassuring, and yet so infinitely fragile, too.
“It’s too late to turn it all back, Firecracker,” Mitchell husked. “But if we could, I wouldn’t change a thing. All the mistakes and all the idiot things I said. If they brought me here, they were worth it.”
I let out a shuddering gasp, and Mitchell gently rolled us over so I was on my back, his bulk hovering over me. It was so different than the last time he’d been inside of me. So soft and tender.
The tears spilled over.
Mitchell leaned down on one forearm, stroking my cheek with his knuckles. “I made you cry the first time we met,” he said, a rueful smile on his face, which was starkly angled in the shadows of night. “My biggest shame.”
I hooked my ankles around his legs, shaking my head onthe pillow. “It’s not you,” I said. “It’s this life. Gifting me a man who makes me feel this way. Who I can’t keep.”
Mitchell was still inside of me, and when he shifted, I hummed momentarily with pleasure even as the tears continued.
“You can keep me, Winona,” he husked. “This doesn’t have to be a passing thing.”
The words made my breath hitch, and for a moment I believed them.
But he wasn’t considering what they meant. He’d told me back at the beginning he needed to go back for something vital with his business. Now I knew it was a major acquisition that could have a direct impact on his mom’s future. On everyone’s future, who shared that disease. Then there was her. She’d been his and his brothers’ savior, he’d said. Everything good when his father made their lives dark. She was declining. The acquisition might make no difference. Especially if he were with me when something happened.
I needed to let him go home.
I smiled at Mitchell then, willing the tears to dry.
My life was changing too. I was right on the cusp of everything changing. He knew that. I knew that.
We both knew we were doomed from the start.
Afterward, as we lay there tangled in the sheets together, talking about everything and nothing. I suddenly remembered what Sarah had said about the architect. How I’d promised her a tour. After all this and I still hadn’t seen more than half of this place.
“I met her,” Mitchell said. “The architect. We were at some party in New York. I told her I was considering taking some time away, and she told me about this place she designed in a jewel of a town tucked into a forested hill in Vermont. Said the closest neighbor was some ex-tennis pro a wholekilometer away, so I’d have total privacy.” He kissed my palm. “She didn’t know Blake was here, of course. It was just… kismet.”
He traced a thumb over the tattoo on my wrist.
This man. Hobnobbing with world famous architects. Willing to be my monster and my prince.
What would Mama have thought of Mitchell?
I didn’t notice that he’d paused, his thumb under the wordlibrary.
I looked up to meet his gaze.
To my surprise, he said, “Lets do the tour now.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
“This was the architect’s favorite part of this house,” Mitchell told me as he rested his hand on a door at the end of the hallway. It was larger than the rest, an ornately carved forest scene on the expansive slab of wood. “I think it could be yours, too.”
He swung the door open.
I let out an audible gasp.
A massive room stretched out before us. It was two stories, with us connected to the first floor with an ornate, winding staircase. Clusters of velvet chairs and couches were artfully arranged over Turkish rugs, and downstairs, a massive fireplace occupied the main wall. But my eyes weren’t on those. My eyes were on the walls, which were lined, floor to ceiling, from first floor to the very top, with books.
