I exhale slowly.
What we have isn’t convenient. It isn’t strategic. It sure as hell isn’t temporary. It’s real. More real than anything I’ve ever had. For better or worse. In sickness and in health. The kind of love I used to think was either bullshit or reserved for other people.
I turn onto my side, watching her breathe.
I need to tell her.
The thought makes my pulse kick up harder than any championship game ever has. I can face down six-foot-four defensemen flying at me on the ice full speed without blinking. I can take a hit, bleed for it, and get back up.
This, though? These stakes are so much higher. Sutton still thinks this is an arrangement. In her mind, there’s still an expiration date hanging over us, waiting for the moment when we quietly go our separate ways.
She doesn’t know she changed everything and that somewhere along the way, she tore down every damn wall I had built around the idea of marriage, let alone my heart.
My chest tightens.
She’s still preparing herself to walk away and go back to her life. To New York. Back to the version of the world where this was never meant to last.
A knot forms in my stomach
I’m in love with her. There’s no doubt about that anymore. It’s in every instinct I have to protect her, to take care of her, to make sure she never has to face anything alone.
But does she love me?
If she still thinks this is temporary…that I’m going to let her go…
My hands curl into fists at my sides.
No. Not a chance.
The truth is simple now, even if I have no idea how the hell I’m supposed to say it out loud. I’m not letting her walk away from me. Not without a fight.
Sutton is mine.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: REAL
SUTTON
It’s beenfour days since Jayce first got sick, and he’s bounced back like nothing happened. Honestly, it feels like ages ago already, especially since his mother has dragged us out to look at wedding venues, the reality of the world crashing back in around us. Our fake engagement, fake wedding planning, and two extremely enthusiastic mothers who are suddenly in constant contact.
It’s…a lot.
Still, every time I think about that night, with Jayce lying pale and burning up with fever in his bed, my chest tightens. I was genuinely terrified. I tried to fight as memories of Colson tried to pull me into an instant panic attack. What if that happened with Jayce? What if he didn’t get better? But I refused to let that happen so I tried to stay calm while caring for him. Tried to calm my thoughts and focus, convincing myself it was just a virus or exhaustion or something minor. When he’d drifted in and out of sleep, though, mumbling incoherently, his skin too hot beneath my hand…
I’d realized something that scared me even more than his illness. I care about him.
A lot.
More than I ever intended to. More than I should. The thought settles in my chest now, heavy and impossible to ignore. I’m falling for him, and that sends a ripple of panic rushing through me. I’m treading into dangerous territory.
Jayce has been very clear about his views on marriage from the start. He doesn’t believe in it. Not in the forever sense people usually mean. Plus, I’ll eventually have to move back to New York and to my own reality.
The longer this goes on, the more at risk I am of having my heart shattered when it ends. If I were smart, I’d be putting distance between us, but I don’t want to do that. I want this. I wanthim.
For now, for the sake of my own sanity, maybe I should just let it feel real, especially since somethinghaschanged between us since the night he got sick. Before that, we’d had a few intimate nights where we’d fallen asleep together after sex, tangled up in the sheets and too exhausted to move. Most other nights I’d go back to my room and he’d go back to his.
Now, every night, Jayce pulls me into his room. Sometimes we have sex, sometimes we don’t, but it doesn’t matter. He draws me into bed with him, wrapping an arm around me and holding me tight against him, and we fall asleep together.
I love it.
