Page 10 of Ballrooms & Blackmail

And God, I hate how easily that fear still lives inside my body.

It’s over.

I’m safe.

So why do I keep double-checking locks and searching the shadows for monsters?

Groaning, I cover my face with both hands.

I need hobbies.

Preferably hobbies that don’t involve thinking about my ex or mentally casting emotionally unavailable businessmen as fantasy romance heroes.

My stare lands on my kindle, slides to the stack of books on the coffee table, to my full bookcase of pretties tucked against the far wall.

Books have always been safer.

Romantasy novels end happily. The heroes protect people, the main characters overcome seemingly insurmountable odds, the women are badass and take on the world.

Real life?—

I cut the thought off sharply.

No.

I’m not doing that again tonight. Or ever.

I’m not a heroine who can wield magic or a sword. Thorn isn’t a dashing knight who’ll be steadfast by my side.

Fiction is all I’ll ever have.

And that’s enough.

“Is it though?” I whisper to the room.

Which—spoiler alert—doesn’t answer.

Luckily, though, Briar does.

And when she tells me she somehow swapped salt for sugar, I laugh so hard that I forget about the past and the very confusing future.

But I still don’t manage to forget about the look in Thorn’s eyes.

Four

Thorn

Brooks’s apartment smells like garlic and onions.

In other words, it smells damned delicious.

And I know it’s because of one woman.

A woman I know is still here…because I saw her car in the parking lot.

As I walk through the space, I find that River’s standing at the kitchen counter, her gorgeous ass clad in burgundy leggings and an oversized gray sweatshirt that’s dusted with flour across one sleeve, her brow furrowed in concentration while she aggressively whisks something in a bowl.

Aggressively.