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But a heartbeat later, reality crashes over me like ice water, and I clench my jaw so hard I’m surprised my teeth don’t crack.

What the fuck did I just say? That was beyond reckless. It was career suicide wrapped up in a moment of whiskey-soaked honesty that I should have kept locked down tight.

I spent the first few hours of the night tossing and turning, my mind refusing to quiet down enough to let me sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I was hyperaware of Maeve lying in a bed just down the hall—right next to one of my best friends.

I finally gave up on sleep and came downstairs to raid the well-stocked liquor cabinet for a drink. Just something to take the edge off this restless agitation that’s been eating at me since we got here.

And it was working, damn it.

The whiskey was doing its job, smoothing out the jagged edges of my thoughts, until she appeared like some kind of vision sent specifically to torment me. Standing there in that doorway wearing nothing but silk pajamas and a robe so thin it might as well be tissue paper, staring out at the snow like something ethereal and untouchable.

She looked like an angel. Or maybe a demon designed to test every ounce of my self-control. This whole fake engagement situation has been fucking with my head in ways I didn’t anticipate. I had everything so perfectly compartmentalized before—she was our assistant, period. End of story. Off-limits didn’t even begin to cover it. She’s Ford’s brother’s ex-girlfriend, for fuck’s sake. I couldn’t have found a more forbidden woman if I tried.

I’m usually excellent at not thinking about things that are bad for me. It’s a survival skill I’ve honed to perfection over the years.

But now she’s here, playing the part of Ford’s fiancée, and I can’t stop my brain from cataloging all the ways I shouldn’t want her. Which, predictably, only makes me want her more.

The silence stretches between us, charged with all the things I shouldn’t have said and all the things I’m still thinking. Maeve’s tongue darts out to wet her bottom lip, and I have to grip my whiskey glass tighter to keep from crossing the space between us and showing her exactly what I want to do with that mouth.

“You know it’s not like that between Ford and me, right?” Her voice is soft, worried, like she’s afraid she’s somehow betrayed me. “I mean, yes, I’m in his bed, but not like that. We’re just sharing it for appearances. Nothing’s happened between us.”

I nod because I don’t trust my voice not to betray exactly how much her reassurance affects me, but her words do nothing to ease the jealousy that’s been gnawing at my chest like a living thing. If anything, knowing that she’s lying next to Ford every night, close enough to touch but not touching, makes it worse somehow.

I need to say something—anything—to break this moment and get us back onto safer ground. I can’t take back what I’ve already let slip, but I can at least try to step back over the line before I do something truly stupid.

“By the way,” I say, grasping for the first neutral topic I can think of, “you don’t have any reason to be nervous about Liam being here.”

Maeve’s forehead creases in confusion, which at least means I’ve successfully distracted her from my earlier confession. “What do you mean?”

“It’s obvious he never deserved you in the first place.”

To my complete surprise, Maeve bursts into laughter—not the reaction I was expecting. There’s something slightly off about it though, something that isn’t quite hysteria but isn’t entirely stable either.

“I’m sorry, it’s just—” She shakes her head, still giggling. “Maybe I deserved him after all.”

Now it’s my turn to be confused. “At the risk of sounding like an echo, what the hell do you mean by that?”

The laughter dies abruptly, and Maeve sobers, running her hands through her messy red hair. Fuck, I’m jealous of her fingers. I want to feel those silky strands sliding through my hands, want to fist them and tug her head back so I can⁠—

“Being with Liam was really bad for my self-esteem,” she says quietly, and the admission makes my shoulders go tense.

“How so?” I keep my tone casual, but inside, a cold rage is starting to build. I’ve always suspected that Liam didn’t treat her the way she deserved, but I never had details. It felt too dangerous to ask—at least, it did for me.

“He was always telling me…” She trails off, shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter now.”

“It does matter.” The words come out sharper than I intended.

She bites that tempting bottom lip again, and I shift in my chair. “He would say that my mouth wouldn’t stop running. Unless it was, um… full of food.”

My eyebrows shoot up before I can stop them, and I know I’m not fast enough to hide the reaction that flashes across my face. The urge to find Liam right now and show him exactly what I think of men who tear down women is almost overwhelming.

“He would always comment on how other women looked,” she continues, her voice getting smaller. “Going on and on about how beautiful they were. They were always model types, you know—tall, thin, everything I’m not. He made me feel every single day like I wasn’t enough.” She shrugs and gives a tiny, self-deprecating laugh. “And yet I stayed with him for two years.”

I want to ask her why. Why the hell would she tolerate someone who made her feel less than extraordinary? But I can see that she’s not done getting this off her chest, so I wait, letting her speak without interruption.

“I even agreed to marry him. Pretty pathetic, right?”

“You’re not pathetic,” I say quietly. “People have stayed with worse men. Men who hit them, men who control every aspect of their lives. Sometimes when you’re in the middle of it, it’s hard to recognize abuse for what it is.”