Adam laughs, but there’s a flicker behind it. A test.
The retort flies out before I can stop it. Too easy. Too reflexive after years of throwing daggers at each other.
“Well, that would mean I’m crazy enough to marry you, so clearly I couldn’t be trusted to manage my own assets.”
It was supposed to be a joke.
But I see it, the shift. The light in his eyes dulls, and suddenly the ground tilts under my feet.
Shit.
“That came out wrong,” I blurt.
I didn’t mean it. God, I didn’t mean it like that. “I’m sorry.”
He pulls his hands away from me like I remind him why he’s never safe around me. And that’s the problem with us, isn’t it? I don’t know how to be vulnerable with him unless I’m half naked.
“You asked me last night,” his voice is rough, coming out on the cusp of an exhale, “while I was buried inside you, if…if we could be something.”
He stands abruptly.
My knees buckle, and I sink onto the cushions, paralyzed by dread.
“Make up your mind,” he says, voice frayed, looking over my shoulder through the window. “I’m too old for games.”
He spins on his heel, then hesitates, with one last glance over his shoulder. “I’m trying my luck on the terrace,” he says, barely a whisper. “It’s been quiet for a while.”
His footsteps echo on the stone floor, each one striking like a hammer in my ears. I watch him disappear until the silence rushes back in.
My heart is crawling up my throat. The room feels unsteady, dizziness setting in while I’m gasping for air.
The echo of his words is still alive around me, and I can only stare at the spot where he just stood, wondering how I’m already messing things up—when he hasn’t even agreed to give me a second chance yet.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
ADAM
“We’ve missed you around here,” Gilda says, setting a neat stack of files on my desk.
The uncertainty that’s been gnawing at me since we returned last week from Venice instantly prickles my skin.
“I haven’t been neglecting our clients,” I say, a little too harshly.
“I know.” Gilda tugs at her jacket sleeve, her back straight. “People think that something’s wrong with you, though. Last spring, you looked a bit…off. Then you randomly drop in for meetings and disappear again.”
I arch a questioning brow. Her motherly streak might bleed through the professional armor on occasion, but I’m still her boss.
Her palms shoot up, placating. “We’re just worried.”
“Thank you, Gilda.” I clear my throat, grasping for the calm that’s been slipping through my fingers these days.
Another chance. For me and Jackie. Not just surrendering to the attraction, but an honest try at building something real.
I’m aware she needs more time than most people to untangle her emotions. I would’ve waited for her to talk about it. And if she’d asked for that chance all those years ago, I would’ve leaped at it. I’d have swallowed all my insecurities whole and given her everything she asked for.
Could we truly make a fresh start now? Or would her suspicions always run beneath us like an underground river, slowly wearing away at our foundation again?
“I don’t have an incurable disease. Only some personal issues I needed to deal with.”
