I looked up to see Fontaine walking in. I hadn’t even heard the door open.
I handed him the card and headed for the living room.
He followed, shrugging off his coat.
“This from who I think it’s from?”
“Yep. Showed up right after your girl Parker hung up on me.”
He let out a low breath and looked at the card again. “I’m guessing that didn’t go well.”
“She said what she said, and I said what I said.” I waved a hand and sank onto the couch. “But she warned me to be careful. I guess doing her due diligence as my handler.”
“Hm.” He dropped down beside me. “You going?”
I nodded.
“You could let me dig a little more. Give it another twenty-four hours.”
“There’s no time. I can’t keep people like this waiting—you gotta move when they’re ready.”
His jaw ticked. “And you’re planning to just walk in there alone?”
“You worried about me?” I teased.
He huffed out a breath and pushed up his glasses. “It just seems reckless.”
I reached for him, brushing my fingers through his beard. “This is what I do. You know I’m not sloppy. Plus, I’m not stupid—I know you’ve been tracking both my phones since I got back. You’ll know where I’m at.”
“Still don’t like it. Something in the milk ain’t clean,” he grumbled.
“Don’t do that,” I murmured, climbing into his lap.
I rested my head against his chest and inhaled deeply, letting the scent of him anchor me. Rich leather and spice from the Tom Ford cologne that he always wore, layered over something clean, like he’d just taken a shower. The memories rushed back—us in bed, the way I felt safest when he wrapped himself around me. All things I’d buried the minute I left him in New York.
“When you start wearing these all the time?” I asked, slipping off his glasses and placing them on the table beside us.
“Sitting in front of a screen finally caught up to me,” he replied as his arms settled around my waist.
I wondered what else I’d missed in the time I’d been gone. What else had changed in his life while I was out in the world trying to forget him?
“When you gon’ let me help you?” he mused, fingers tracing along my spine. “You don’t have to carry all this alone.”
“I know. But it’s my default setting—Sterling made me this way. My head’s so fucked up, I don’t know what it looks like to have help. I’ve been broken for so long, that this is my version of being whole. It never was a problem ‘til you came along.”
He let out a slow breath as he pressed his lips to my collarbone. “You’re not broken, Nai.”
I buried my face in his neck and closed my eyes, trying topush down the lump in my throat. He didn’t know how badly I wanted to believe him. From the jump, Fontaine had always seen right past my impenetrable armor. How pathetic was it that I was thirty-eight and never been in anything that resembled a real relationship? Men were useful and temporary—Fontaine was neither of those things.
His hands moved over my skin. “You ever gonna let me in, Kitten?” His voice was smooth like cognac. “Ain’t nothing about you too much for me. You got me. Shit, you been had me.”
But Sterling’s voice came creeping back—Don’t depend on anybody. Your instinct is what’ll keep you alive.
And right now, it was screaming that letting Fontaine in would break me down in ways I wouldn’t come back from.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I said finally, meeting his gaze. “This wasn’t in my plans.”
Something flickered across his face as his green eyes bore into mine. Something between hurt and resignation.
