She smiled, her fingers tracing along his jaw. “Like I belonged here.”
“You do,” he said without thinking, then paused as the weight of those words settled between them.
Her eyes softened. “Do I?”
“More than you know,” he said, rolling her beneath him and capturing her mouth in a kiss that tasted like forever.
He’d showered first, and when Devney disappeared into the bathroom, he asked the doorman to bring her clothes up from the car. By the time they made it to the kitchen an hour later, she was in the pretty blue summer dress they’d picked out for the weekend in Martha’s Vineyard. The dynamic between them had shifted into new territory. Not the deliberate distance they’d maintained before, but not quite the easy intimacy they’d shared in his sickness either.
This was uncharted territory for both of them.
The morning routine felt different now—charged with new awareness. He set out the pastries and fruit from the bakery delivery while she perched on a barstool, watching him with curious eyes.
“Coffee?” he offered, reaching for the expensive machine that dominated one corner of his kitchen.
“Please.” She smoothed her dress with nervous energy. “So. We should talk about…yesterday. Last night.”
He paused in his coffee preparation, understanding her need to define what had happened between them. “What about it?”
“What it means. For us. For work. For this whole fake engagement thing.”
He set her coffee in front of her. “What do you want it to mean?”
“That’s not an answer,” she said, taking a sip and sighing with pleasure.
“It’s the only answer I have right now,” he admitted. “I don’t have a protocol for this situation.”
“The great Ronan Wilder, stumped by a simple relationship question.” There was an edge of vulnerability in her voice.
“There’s nothing simple about this,” he said. “About you. About what I feel when I’m with you.”
Her eyes softened. “What do you feel?”
He was quiet for a moment, struggling to put into words emotions he’d never experienced before. “Like I’ve been sleepwalking through my life, and you woke me up.”
The admission hung between them, more revealing than any physical intimacy they’d shared.
“Ronan,” she said.
“I know it makes things complex,” he continued. “The business arrangement, our working relationship, everything. But I can’t pretend last night didn’t happen. I can’t pretend I don’t want it to happen again.”
“I don’t want to pretend either,” she said. “But we need to be smart about this. At work, we still need to maintain some level of boundaries.”
“Agreed.” Though even as he said it, he was imagining how difficult it would be to maintain workplace distance when all he wanted was to pull her back into his arms.
“And the fake engagement…do we keep that going? With the Beauchamps, I mean.”
It was a practical question, but it struck him with unexpected force. Because somewhere in the space between fevered dreams and the morning light, the engagement had stopped feeling fake to him.
“We’ll figure it out,” he said. “Together.”
She nodded, seeming satisfied with that answer. “Together.”
The word felt like a promise.
They rode to work in his car, maintaining deliberate space between them but stealing glances when they thought the other wasn’t looking. The sexual tension was palpable, a live wire connecting them across the leather seats.
When they arrived at Oath Capital, he spotted the florist in the lobby and made a quick decision.
