The silence that follows is far too telling.
My head snaps up. “Lorenzo.”
His jaw tightens. That’s answer enough.
I close my eyes. “Kill me.”
A rough exhale leaves him—almost a laugh, but not quite. “Tempting as that sounds, no.”
I groan and bury my face in my hands again. “I hate everything.”
“You still hate me most.”
I peek at him through my fingers. “Don’t get cocky.”
That nearly earns the thing I’ve been trying not to see all night—a real smile, brief and dark and gone too fast. It onlyinfuriates me further that part of me notices how unfairly handsome he looks like this, rumpled from sleep and half-covered in sheets like sin itself.
I shove the thought away so hard it makes my temples ache.
“What happened?” I ask, forcing my hands down into my lap. “Did I just—” I gesture vaguely between us, mortified all over again. “Roll over?”
His eyes hold mine for one dangerous second.
Then he says, “You had a dream.”
My throat goes dry. “And?”
“And you reached for me.”
I cross my arms over myself. “Well, that was clearly a mistake.”
Something changes in his expression at that. Not much. Just enough to make my chest tighten.
“You were asleep,” he repeats, quieter now.
I look away first. Because that’s the problem, isn’t it? I was asleep. Asleep enough to forget I’m supposed to hate him. Asleep enough to reach for him like some part of me still remembers what comfort felt like in his arms. I hate that most of all.
I swallow hard. “You should have woken me.”
“I tried.”
That pulls my gaze back to him. He doesn’t elaborate. He doesn’t need to. The look in his eyes says enough—that he had his own reasons for wanting distance, his own battle to keep his hands to himself while I clung to him in the dark.
A fresh wave of embarrassment crashes over me.
I pull my knees up and wrap my arms around them, making myself as small as possible. “This is a disaster.”
“Yes.”
I blink, surprised by the lack of argument.
Lorenzo sits up fully now, resting his forearms on his knees,his voice rough with sleep and something heavier. “But not for the reason you think.”
I stare at him. He stares right back. And suddenly the air in the room feels too thick, too full of everything that happened on the plane, in the church, in the dark between us while I was dreaming.
I shake my head once. “Don’t.”
His brow furrows. “Don’t what?”
