For the first time all night, he looks like he doesn’t have an answer. His hand tightens on the handle.
Then he says, “Making a mess.”
I lean back against the counter and press both palms to the cool marble, trying to steady my breathing.
My legs are still trembling. My mouth still feels swollen from his kisses. My whole body is humming, too aware, too raw, too alive. On the floor, the torn scrap of lace stares back at me like evidence from a crime scene.
What are we doing?
Making a mess.His words echo in my head, dark and rough and far too honest.
I know he told me to stay here. One minute. Let him handle it.
But the thought of walking out through the dining room, of facing that woman, of seeing her eyes flick between us and understanding exactly why he’s leaving, makes heat and shame flood me all over again. I can’t do it. I just can’t.
So I fix my dress as best I can, splash cold water on my face, and take one look at myself in the mirror.
Flushed cheeks. Kissed mouth. Guilty eyes.
Nope. Absolutely not.
I slip out of the bathroom and find the service corridor instead of the main hall, following the discreet brass signs toward the staff entrance. The farther I get from the terrace, the faster my heart starts pounding. By the time I push through the back door into the night air, I’m almost running.
The cold hits my skin like a slap.
Good, I need that.
I hurry down the narrow path behind the estate, gravel crunching under my heels, one hand clutching the side of my dress, the other wrapped around my phone. The world feels too bright, too sharp. Every nerve still lit up from him. Every thought a mess.
This is insane.I just let my boss tear my underwear off in a restaurant bathroom while his date waited outside.
I am absolutely losing my mind.
The back path opens onto a quieter street lined with old stone walls and dark trees. No pedestrians. No sound except the wind moving through the branches and the frantic click of my heels on pavement.
I should call Frankie. I should call a cab. I should stop walking long enough to think.
Instead, I keep moving, fast, trying to outrun the heat in my body and the panic in my chest.
That’s when headlights sweep across the road.
A dark sedan pulls up beside me, smooth and sudden.
My stomach drops. The passenger window lowers halfway, too slow, too deliberate, and every instinct in my body screams at once.
Run.
But my feet freeze for one fatal second as I turn toward the car, pulse hammering, breath caught somewhere between my lungs and my throat.
19
ALEKSEI
When I step backonto the terrace, the night feels different.
Colder.
The candle on the table still burns in its glass holder, the flame steady despite the wind that drifts over the estate grounds. Beyond the stone balustrade, the lawn stretches into darkness, trimmed too neatly, lit too softly, every hedge and pathway arranged to look effortless. The kind of place built for old money and polite secrets.
