Page 36 of Reveal

Something has shifted between us.

There’s a gravity all of a sudden—a realization that whatever this is between us is so very different than before. Sure, he stated it with so many words when he met me in the hallway, but now? Now it feels real, and there’s panic in acknowledging it.

I scoot off the bed without either of us saying a word. The clock on the nightstand reads 11:30 p.m., and I wonder how it can be the same day when everything feels so very different.

It takes me a minute to find my dress on the floor in the darkened room. “Lucy’s at home. It was my night. Joey’s with her. I need . . .” I slip my dress on as I struggle to explain what sounds so very stupid to me. That I kept my night to have Lucy even though I was going out to the event. That I hired Joey to watch her. That I’m now using her being there as an excuse to leave. “I need to—I just—”

“I understand.” His eyes meet mine across the room, but they say the exact opposite of his words.

I don’t know what to say to him. I don’t know how all the emotion shared between us in the past hour can still feel tinged with an uncertainty, a hurt, but it does. I go to leave but find myself turning around to face him. Words and thoughts and emotions bubble up and manifest in the tears welling in my eyes.

He notices but stays where he is—sitting up in his massive bed, the sheet draped over his waist, his hair mussed, his head angled just slightly to the side—and waits for me to lead us.

“Vaughn?”

“I know we just did this”—I point to the bed like a tongue-tied teenager—“but I . . . I need to take this slow. I need to . . .”

“I understand.” Two simple words reiterated, but they make a lone tear slip over and slide down my cheek. “Can I walk you out or get my driver to—”

“No. Stay.” I shake my head. “Good night.”

“Night, Vaughn.”

We stare at each other for a few moments as I beg my feet to move, while my heart wants to stay here and my head is uncertain about the limbo I feel.

And when I finally find the courage to leave, I’m not sure if I’m relieved or saddened that he lets me. Maybe we’re both finding our footing in this new chapter we’ve started. Maybe we’re afraid to ruin the moment we’ve shared.

But I leave.

To gain some clarity. To give myself some space to process everything. To make sure I’m ready to accept his love the only way he knows how to give it.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Vaughn

I had no intention of sleeping with Ryker.

I really didn’t.

I had planned to go to his penthouse and explain why I was wronged—why he had wronged me—and to explain why we could never be despite how much I quietly wanted him.

But something happened while I waited for him in the hallway.

His words from the gala hit my ears. The between-the-lines things I felt he was really saying to me that no one else would have caught ran loops in my mind.

And so when he stepped off the elevator and I saw him there—broad shoulders, weary and surprised eyes, jaw clenched—the reason I had gone there changed without me ever knowing it.

I wanted to tell him I appreciated his speech at the gala.

Maybe I even wanted to feel him one last time.

But whatever my intention was, it sure as hell wasn’t to be leaving after sleeping with him.

It sure as shit wasn’t to leave with my heart in my throat, my head more than a mess, and my soul terrified at how much the man can make me feel in all aspects.

But that’s what I did.

That’s where I’m at.