Page 110 of Safe Word

They belonged to opposite worlds – day and night. But lately, they had started to blur into each other, and I wasn’t sure who was bleeding into whom.

Wanting both made me feel like a fraud, as if I owed them answers I hadn’t yet found for myself. Even though Ghost existed only in the shadows, it felt wrong, unfair to let those moments with him consume me while my days were spent navigating the unspoken tension with Cain. My mind wanted a line in the sand, but my body kept stepping over it. And my heart? Still buried beneath it.

I exhaled sharply, dragging a hand through my hair. It was ridiculous. I was ridiculous. Here I’d been, judging Cain’s mother, but wasn’t I doing worse? The irony of it all sank in like a punchline no one laughed at. I was trapped between a phantom who’d never truly existed… and a man too real to touch without getting burned.

If I didn’t choose, I would shatter.

With a sigh, I glanced back towards Cain, who’d just signed a book for a woman. His profile was outlined in the neon light like something carved from the sweetest sort of regret. His posture was relaxed, but his brow carried that ever-present edge of weariness.

He looked tired. Not just in body, but in a way that gnawed at the soul and never let go.

Ghost… Cain.

It didn’t matter how different – or alike – they were, how impossible this situation had become. I had to figure out what I wanted. Or risk losing everything.

TWENTY

I’d seen women seduce before – seen them play at it, wield it like a weapon or a shield, depending on the kind of poison in front of them.

But Paula DeLuca didn’t seduce.

She just was.

She bent forward at the table as if unaware of the effect – the delicate curve of her cleavage, the dip of red fabric against heat-kissed skin. But I couldn’t ignore it. I felt it searing through every buttoned-up instinct in me.

And fuck me if it didn’t make me want to rip into it.

I took a slow sip from my bottle. Watched her fingers as she toyed with the label of her bottle with casual grace. She thought she was composed. Maybe even believed it. But I’d been watching her all night – since before she stumbled back into the lounge in a different dress.

Maybe that was what made me say it aloud – the fragments of my past. Maybe it was the beer. Maybe the way she looked at me like she actually wanted to hear the truth, not decorate it with sympathy.

I’d never told anyone my story. Just Vinnie and the therapist. And yet, it had unravelled before I could stop it. What surprised me more was her reaction. She didn’t cringe. Didn’t tilt her head with that pitying softness people get when they don’t know what to do with someone else’s pain. She just listened. As though she’d seen similar shadows and didn’t need to name them to understand. That kind of silence was unravelling me more than a thousand sorrys ever could.

What would’ve Scarlett done? She’d been the thread holding me together. But Paula… she saw me. And for a moment, I couldn’t tell whose name my soul answered to. Scarlett embraced my shadows. But this woman saw through them – and didn’t recoil.

And what happened when Scarlett had enough? Hell, we clearly weren’t exclusive.

She existed in the dark, in stolen moments and whispered promises when we pretended we weren’t who we were. She trusted me enough to let me guide her into the darkness, but she didn’t truly know me. Not Cain. Not the man sitting here, watching the woman he worked with across the table as if she were dessert.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was losing control.

Paula repositioned herself in her chair, her elbow resting on the table as she traced the rim of it with a finger.

I should have been focused on the conversation, on the work we were supposed to be doing, but all I could think about was how dangerously close this woman was to splitting me open, despite Scarlett’s brand on my soul.

‘You’re quiet,’ she said, her voice pulling me from my thoughts.

I cleared my throat, settled back in my chair. ‘Just thinking.’

She angled her head, a small smile playing on her lips. ‘Should I be annoyed or worried?’

‘Both, maybe,’ I said with a smirk I couldn’t keep from spreading.

Her laugh was soft, but it sent a ripple of heat through me, too close to the sound Scarlett had made when I whispered against her neck.

‘Let me guess,’ she said, crossing her arms over her chest. ‘You’re overthinking that scene I wrote last.’

I chuckled this time, dragging a hand through my hair to conceal the lie. ‘Guilty.’