This was the most dangerous blueprint I'd ever drawn. No engineering margin. No fail-safes. No load calculations that could predict how much pressure two flawed people could bear before the structure buckled.
I was in it. All the way.
And for a man who'd spent his adult life designing buildings meant to endure, the most terrifying prospect wasn't the falling.
It was discovering I didn't want to be caught.
I wanted to fall. Wanted it with her. Wanted whatever came after the impact, even if it left a mark.
Especially if it left a mark.
I closed my eyes. Sleep wouldn't come easy.
But for the record—I didn't need it to.
nine
WILLOW
I woke up with the memory of Callum’s lips on mine.
I could still feel the phantom pressure of Callum Hayes's hands in my hair, his body over mine on the couch, the way he'd kissed my neck and I'd made a sound that should've embarrassed me but instead made him pull me closer.
I stared at the guest room ceiling. His guest room ceiling, in his pristine apartment, where I was currently living as his fake girlfriend who had very really kissed him last night and was now supposed to get up and face him in the kitchen as if my entire operating system hadn't been reformatted.
Cool. Great. No problem.
I checked my phone. 5:47 a.m. My alarm would go off in thirteen minutes. I could hear movement beyond the bedroom door—the quiet clink of a mug, waterrunning, the particular rhythm of a person who'd been awake for a while. He was already up. Already functioning. Probably already back in one of those suits that made him look composed and untouchable and not at all the same man who'd come apart against my mouth eight hours ago.
I pulled the covers over my head and considered my options.
Option A: Walk out there, act normal, pretend last night was a blip. A fluke. An anomaly caused by proximity and dim rooms and the dangerous intimacy of living in another person's space. Adults did that, right? Compartmentalized? Put things in boxes?
Option B: Climb out the window. Fifteen floors was a lot, but I'd seen that movie where the guy scaled a building with suction cups. Granted, I didn't have suction cups, but desperation was a powerful motivator.
Option C: Walk out there, acknowledge what happened, have an honest conversation about feelings and boundaries and the fact that our arrangement had just detonated.
I chose Option A with a cowardly enthusiasm that would've made any emotionally constipated person proud.
The shower bought me fifteen minutes. I stood under Callum's fancy angel-tears waterpressure and rehearsed casual greetings.Morning! Hey there. Oh, hi, didn't hear you.Each one sounded more deranged than the last.
I toweled off, pulled on my own jeans and a sweater—no more borrowing his clothes, not after last night, not when wearing his t-shirt would feel less "roommate" and more "woman staking a territorial claim"—and finger-combed my hair into a state that was presentable if not inspired.
Deep breath. Open the door. Act normal.
He stood at the kitchen island, back to me, pouring from the French press. Suit. Charcoal today. White shirt. Hair pushed back, still damp at the edges. He'd shaved. He looked the way he always looked—put together, controlled, unreasonably attractive in a way that I'd spent a year pretending didn't register.
Oof. Why is he so fucking hot?
Probably because now I knew what that jaw felt under my palms. Now I knew his control was a choice, not a permanent condition, and it shattered beautifully when I pulled him down to me.
Stop it. Stop it right now.
"Morning," I said. Casual. Breezy. Nailed it.
He turned. Those gray eyes found mine, and I watched him do his own rapid assessment. Whatever he was looking for—regret, panic, the wild-eyed look ofa woman about to bolt—he didn't find it. Or he hid his reaction.
"Morning." He slid a coffee across the island. "I used the Ethiopian blend."
