Maddy had felt the same.I’m getting married. To a man. I’m losing it.
Eva had agreed. There hadn’t been any other reasonable response. So that was that. End of story.
Except it didn’t feel like the end of anything.
Eva shifted under the covers, restless. If it had been just an attraction, it would have been easier to dismiss. Eva could have dealt with it. Controlled herself. But it was the way Maddy, who had great difficulty decidinganything, came for her so determinedly, for what she seemed to want so much in that moment.
And Eva—who prided herself on control, on boundaries—hadn’t stopped it. It was like she didn’t know how to. Like herbody only knew how to do what it wanted and nothing else. And that wasn’t true. That had never been true. She wasn’t like her parents, who never met a narcotic they could turn away from. Not even at the cost of losing their only child.
Eva had a hold of herself. She’d always had a hold of herself. And lust was just another drug. Sex was a drug. Love was a drug.
She turned onto her other side, as if a change of position might help. It didn’t. Hannah kept snoring cacophonously, rolled slightly, and continued snoring without interruption.
Eva stared into the dim room and told herself, very firmly, that this was exactly why she didn’t blur lines. One moment of letting something slip, and suddenly her entire body was behaving chaotically.
But, for fuck’s sake, it had only been a brief touch of lips. That was all. So why did it feel like something had broken?
Eva’s gaze drifted to the door. The handle was just visible in the low light, and the thought came quietly. It would be very easy to get up, open it without a sound, and step out into the corridor.
It would be even easier to walk down the hall and stop outside Maddy’s room. To tap lightly. Just enough that Maddy would know it was her.
Eva closed her eyes, cutting the thought off. No. That was not happening. For several very good reasons.
First: Maddy was sharing a room with her mother, and if she turned out to be a light sleeper, Eva had no desire to explain her presence outside that door. Second—and more importantly—Maddy had made her position clear. The kiss had been a mistake for her.
Eva was not about to ignore that. She wasn’t going to be the person who complicated someone else’s life for the sake of this crazy pull. Even if Eva’s body was still electrified from contact, all these hours later. Even if she wanted…
She shifted again, muttering under her breath, ‘For god’s sake,’ before she realised she’d spoken aloud. But Hannah’s snoring continued, unbothered and unwavering.
The night stretched on. Eva checked the time more than once—3:17, then 4:02, then 5:11—each time hoping that exhaustion would finally win out. It didn’t. Sleep stayed out of reach, the bitch.
By the time the first light of morning crept around the curtains, Eva had given up.
She moved carefully, slipping out of bed without disturbing Hannah, who snored on. Eva dressed quickly and quietly, gathering her things carefully.
At the door, the thought returned. She could still knock. She could still choose to make this into something else, something harder to walk away from.
But she didn’t.
Maddy had a life already in motion. And Eva was an adult with a job and the ability to control her impulses.
She opened the door, stepped into the empty corridor, and closed it gently behind her.
Twenty-Nine
Maddy woke. The room was too warm. The duvet was half-kicked off, Maddy’s hair tangled around her face, and for a few brief merciful seconds, she didn’t remember anything at all. Then it came back in a rush. The massage room, the quiet, the way the world had narrowed to one person. Eva.
She could still taste her lips…
Maddy sat up abruptly and knocked rapidly on her own temple. ‘OUT!’ she said sharply to her thoughts.
‘Are you okay?’ Kelly said from across the room, alarmed. She was already dressed and halfway through a cup of tea.
‘Oh. Forgot you were there,’ Maddy said, embarrassed.
Kelly put her cup down. ‘That was rather intense.’
‘I just have a headache,’ Maddy said, which was technically true. ‘And I saw this YouTube video that said you could trick your brain into getting rid of it by… Anyway. Probably rubbish.’
