Page 102 of My Three Billionaire Rockstars

“Now I have to.”

I shake my head, smiling despite myself. I start to forget to be careful. I forget to question it. I just exist in it.

Which is exactly what I said I wouldn’t do.

I push my plate away, fingers brushing the edge of the table.

“This was nice,” I say.

Gabe’s gaze flicks to mine. Julian stills for half a second. Xander just watches me.

Like he’s waiting to see what I do next.

And the worst part?

I don’t know.

EIGHTEEN

Gabe

Dinner should’ve settled me. That was the plan.

We invited Willow here, gave her something structured, familiar enough to lower her guard, and handed the evening a shape that didn’t force any of us to address the more volatile reality sitting just beneath it.

It was a sound plan. A measured one. We had food, conversation, a topic she could engage with on her own terms, and in return she gave us more than I’d expected.

So, now I have a lot on my mind.

She sat at our table and turned the room into warmth. Less curated, more dangerous. She teased me about the kitchen with that dry, unimpressed delivery of hers and somehow made me enjoy being mocked in my own house. She challenged our rollout plans, dismantled weaknesses in our strategy within minutes, and made it sound effortless.

She looked more relaxed as the evening went on, and every time that happened, every time the tension left her shoulders a little more, every instinct I possess honed around it.

Because relaxed Willow is somehow more affecting than defensive Willow.

Defensive Willow keeps distance. Relaxed Willow forgets to.

I stand at the kitchen island with my sleeves still rolled, stacking plates that don’t need to be stacked yet because no one has actually finished moving away from the table.

Across the room, Julian is stretched back in his chair because he’s been designed specifically to look at ease in moments other people struggle through. He has one ankle hooked over the opposite knee, a whiskey glass loose in one hand, and that expression on his face that always means he’s about thirty seconds away from either making a situation better or making it significantly worse.

Willow is sitting sideways in her chair now, skirt fitted on her hips just right, one elbow on the table, head tilted as she listens to him talk. Her hair has loosened a little over the course of the evening. A few dark strands have slipped free around her face, softening the edges of her expression. She’s smiling without realizing it.

I notice because I notice everything.

Xander notices because he hasn’t stopped with her.

He’s at the far end of the room, leaning against the cabinet beneath the windows, drink in hand, saying very little. To anyone else he would probably look calm. Detached, maybe. Resting in that familiar, hard-edged stillness he wears when he wants the world to leave him alone.

I know better. He’s too quiet.

Willow glances his way for half a second and then back to Julian, and the air in the room shifts so subtly I’m not sure anyone but me catches it. Xander says nothing. He doesn’t have to. He’s always had a gift for imposing tension without movement.

And still, despite the fact that I can map the emotional pressure points in this room with humiliating accuracy, I’m not immune to any of them.

Particularly not her.

I collect the glasses next, because that follows the plates. Because it’s the correct sequence. Because if I remain occupied, then I can continue pretending there’s order in the room.