She repeated the words to herself, to her anxious heart.
Dominic had never lied to her. Never promised her anything.
And she wasn’t wrong to hope. What was between them was more than mere attraction. She could read it in his eyes. And yet her heart felt trapped behind a bramble of thorns.
That protective barrier had served her well for years, but now she wanted to pull it down and didn’t know if she could.
When she reached the stones—remnants of an old field wall—where she and Tristan used to sit to watch a sunset or the sunrise, she settled atop them and pressed a hand to her chest.
Her heart still raced, but less now, more from exertion than panic.
She hugged her knees and rested her chin atop them as she stared down from the small hill at the first golden fingers of dawn stretching across the horizon.
Regret, which she’d feared, wasn’t any part of what she felt. Indeed, she couldn’t think of a single moment they’d shared that didn’t bring a smile to her lips.
What weighed on her was the thought of what would come next.
Each time they shared a bit of their past or their bodies came together in a kiss, she tipped a little more. Her heart listing in his direction as easily as her body seemed to whenever he was near.
If she let this go on—if she went back to the cottage and got into bed with him as everything in her wished to—she’d tip so far that she’d fall completely.
And some part of her, the part that he’d sparked from that first moment they’d met, wanted to be brave, to race back to him and allow whatever was between them to bloom.
Yet deep inside, far in the back of her mind, she couldn’t resist imagining how it would end. And how, having fallen so completely, she’d break.
It had been hard enough to put the pieces of herself together three years ago. She didn’t relish the prospect again.
Logically, she knew there was one clean, simple solution. End this now. Yesterday and last night had been perfect. Why crave more?
But she did. Heaven help her, she did.
As dawn lit up the sky, she stood to go back to him.
Tess felt no closer to knowing what the future held for the two of them, but she felt one thing deep in her bones. A firmer certainty than the fear in the back of her mind.
If she ended it now, she’d always wonder. And in that moment, with a gorgeous man sleeping in her bed, such a fate seemed worse than a broken heart.
Dom smiled as he came awake. Tess’s scent filled his senses and memories rolled through his mind. Then he opened his eyes and frowned at the empty space beside him.
Sitting up, he noted that the clothes she’d shed yesterday were gone. He listened but could hear no other sounds in the cottage beyond Tess’s room.
Letting out a sigh, he ran a hand through his hair and then got out of bed.
Did she have regrets? Would she shut him out now?
As he collected and donned his clothing, there wasn’t a single doubt in his mind. Last night had confirmed for him that he wanted Tess Hawthorne, and not just as a temporary lover. He wanted all of her, a place in her life, however she’d allow it.
He wanted to find her and tell her that, yet even as the thought formed in his head, questions came that he couldn’t yet answer.
Marriage had never been among his plans for his life. Atmoments, he’d thought that perhaps one day he’d settle into married life, but he’d always envisioned it as something he’d do when he was old and gray and prepared to calcify.
In truth, as much as he wanted a future with Tess, he didn’t know the shape of what he could offer her. He didn’t even live in his family’s home in London out of a desire to live lightly, without trappings that might keep him in one place too long.
Could he give her the kind of life she deserved?
As doubts swept in to drown all his certainty, a knock sounded on Tess’s bedroom door.
“Tess?” her brother called from the other side. “Are you at home? I saw the cart outside.”
