Fuck. I have to pull myself out of this. I have to step back from the edge before we both do something we’ll regret. No, beforeIdo somethinghe’llregret.
I clear my throat. “You must be a really good midfielder.” But my voice betrays me, husky and a couple of tones deeper than normal.
He smiles and sets his empty glass down so he can slip both his hands under the blanket. My heart races and I hold my foot perfectly still, entirely unsure what he intends to do. He finds it and takes it between his hands, gently massaging it. He presses his thumbs into my insole and I actually moan, because, again, I amoutrageouslyswitched on.
“Your turn.” His voice is low, ragged, begging me to come closer—but at this point, “closer” would be me in his lap. “Truth or Dare?”
Not since Sophie herself has anyone had a choice this hard. What are the odds he’d dare me to blow him? Because, uh, that would be my vote. On the other hand, am I ready to answeranyquestion he throws my way? I swallow. Hard. At least if I go with Truth, he has a better chance of deescalating the vibe in the room. I’ll give him that option, give him that out. “Truth.”
His Cheshire Cat grin slowly unfurls. “Would you like to come over here so you’re not a million miles away from me?”
Yes. “Is that your question?”
“Yes, and you have to tell the truth.”
Yes!“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”
“Is that your answer?”
I hesitate. On the one hand, yes, absolutely I want to be next to him. I want to be so close to him that there’s nothing but atomsbetween us. I want to unfold myself along the length of his body, press us together in all the right places, share breath as we tell each other secrets all night long.
On the other hand…
No. Fuck the other hand. I’m tired of waffling. I crawl over to him and set my empty glass down next to his, relishing the look on his face, the hunger in his eyes as I near him. I nestle into the nook where his arm meets his chest and he folds his arms around me. I rest my head on his chest, rising and falling with his steady inhales and exhales. I sneak a hand onto his stomach, feel him through the soft cotton of his shirt. He’s so solid beneath my fingertips. We lie like that for a long time, just savoring the thrill of being next to each other. I can’t get over it. He’s here, with me. Pulling me closer to him, murmuring words that softly ruffle my hair. “You’re the perfect shape for me. You’re the perfect shape for my life, and I’m so glad you’re in it.”
We’re facing each other now, and I’m noticing his fine eyelashes for the first time, noticing the little cluster of freckles underneath his right eye. It’s taking everything in me not to trace a finger over his lips. “Me too.”
“Your turn to ask,” he whispers. He brushes a strand of hair off my face, tucks it behind my ear, leaves his hand cupping my jaw.
This is it. This is the moment to ask the question I’ve been dying to ask for months. To have him tell me all about Claire, to have me pour my heart out about Steven. To reassure each other we’re on the same page about what this is and where it’s going. To assuage the guilt that’s building in my body about getting so close to him. To bridge that divide, to give voice to the things we’ve long held to be unspeakable. I mean, what are we saying bynottalking about it?
But I don’t say anything. I don’t want to go first, don’t wanthim to see me as this sad sack who couldn’t even be bothered to confront her cheating fiancé. I don’t want him to see me as broken, as anything less than whole and perfect and good. Is that how he feels? Is he ashamed of his failing marriage? Does he pretend like she doesn’t exist around me because he wants me to see him as unbroken too? Or is he just using me, like Josh warned, and I’ll be turfed out the second she sets foot on English soil?
These are the things I want to ask, but I can’t. I don’t want to fracture this fragile thing we’ve created by bringing reality back into it.
It’s nearly three in the morning and his breathing is slowing. He’s in that liminal state before sleep, that soft margin of low hums and fluttering eyelids.
There’s a reason neither of us chose Dare tonight—we’re not ready. Like Josh said, the power imbalance in this relationship is staggering. Lachlan is still married, however doomed that marriage is, whereas I am newly single and still very bruised. He is untouchable, I am dispensable. He’s a phenomenally handsome, stupendously talented gazillionaire, I am a girl from the suburbs of Boston who has one suit that doesn’t fit and no idea what she’s doing. In short, he ishim,I am me. And I know how this ends.
He has succumbed to sleep now, his breathing slow, the arms encircling my waist relaxed. So I whisper to the safety of his slumbering form the one Truth I’m desperate to know: “Are you going to ruin my life?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
November rushes by in ablur of wind and cold. Most of the players are away at the World Cup, so the training center is oddly quiet. The empty, echoing corridor reminds me of my first weeks back in June, but now there’s a sense of camaraderie among those left behind. It’s like we’re camp counselors waiting for our charges to arrive, or bar staff sharing a drink after last call, that strange sense of power and calm that comes with having the run of an empty building. Lots of the Comms team are taking time off, but I’m too enamored of the long, lazy lunches in the canteen or postwork games of pickup football on the training pitches to give all that up for a few frigid days in Boston. Plus, I’m still digging myself out of my hole with Charlotte.
That’s why I’m in my office one darkening evening, elbow-deep in edits to a recap video. It’s coming together well but requires such fiddly little cuts to line everything up just right that I’m mere inches from the monitor, sliding a cursor back and forth across infinitesimal distances, my neck rigid and eyes straining. So when I feel hot breath on the back of my neck, all hell breaks loose.
“Jesus Fucking Christ!” I scream. I whip my headphones off and turn my chair around, prepared to either karate chopwhoever the intruder is, or—more likely—hightail it the fuck out of there. (Fight or flight has never truly been a binary option for me.)
Lachlan is doubled over, his laughter so powerful that he’s gasping for breath. “What. Were you. Going to do. With that?” he chokes out, which is when I realize I’m brandishing quite the powerful weapon: my stapler.
I drop it on the desk and lean forward in my chair. Running my fingers through my hair, I shake my head. “I genuinely thought I was going to die.”
“Not today. Or at least, not by my hands.” He scoots the would-be murder-stapler to the side of the desk and perches in the space it vacated. “So—I know your secret.”
My heart rockets straight up to the vicinity of my throat, borne upon the rush of blood that’s coloring my face. Are we finally going to discuss what happened in the Lake District? The secret that I’m slowly falling in love with him? On the one hand, I assume it’s obvious to everyone who works for the club or, you know, is capable of sentient thought. On the other, this knowledge in the hands of Lachlan Ramsay is a deadly weapon, if only for how mercilessly he’ll mock me. I eye him closely, looking for subtle hints in the curl of his lips or the light dancing behind his eyes, but it looks like your bog-standard Lachlan mischief. So I shrug. “Welp, you found me out: I have fantasized about Mr. Bean.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “Okay, we’re definitely going to put a pin in that one, but no. I know you and Matty and Evie are planning to kidnap me for a birthday dinner tonight.”
