He leans in. Presses a soft kiss to my forehead. Then he grabs the Allen key from the shelf, unlocks the door, and walks out.
Ashton stands there, jaw fully unhinged, looking like she just witnessed the last five minutes ofTitanic.
Nathan nods politely as he passes her. “Hi, Ashton.”
Ashton doesn’t move. She just slowly turns to look at me, hair tousled, shirt wrinkled, breathless, and borderline feral in the storage room doorway.
She mouths, “What. The. Fuck.”
I don’t even have the energy to respond.
Because…same.
Chapter 21
Nathan
I slip into the bathroom before walking into my office, closing the door behind me like I’m hiding something. The mirror catches the smirk I’ve been fighting since I left the bakery. My shirt’s half-tucked, my tie hanging loose. I fix both, trying to look like a man who didn’t just lose control in a storage room.
Cold water runs over my hands, but it does nothing to cool the heat under my skin. I can still taste her. Feel her fingers digging into my shoulders. The sound she made when I pressed her against the wall keeps replaying in my head. I shouldn’t be thinking about it, but I am. Every damn detail.
I laugh under my breath and shake my head. Get it together, Reign.
I grab a paper towel, dry my hands, and toss it into the trash. That’s when I see it.
A white stick. Two faint pink lines. I freeze.
For a second, it’s like the air gets sucked out of the room.
A pregnancy test. Here. In the trash.
It’s not hers. It’s not mine. But unease crawls through me anyway.
Is this a sign?
Am I being smart right now? Have I ever been?
I can’t stop thinking about it—how easily one moment of carelessness could change everything.
By the time I leave the bathroom, that stupid grin is gone. But my pulse is still hammering. I walk into my office, drop into the chair, and don’t even touch my laptop.
The journal sits there, waiting.
I stare at it for a long moment.
This is exactly the kind of thing I’d normally pretend didn’t mean anything. Exactly the kind of door I’d normally keep closed.
I don’t.
I reach for the journal instead.
And as the pen hits the page, I’m already back there, back to the day everything almost changed.
I’d counted every ring of her phone since sunrise.
Seven calls, eleven unanswered texts. That had never happened before. Maddison was the one who couldn’t stand the smallest pause in a conversation.
By late afternoon, I’d memorized the curve of the ceiling crack above my bed. Bishop would call it paranoia; I called it instinct. Something was wrong.
