I stepped closer.
Then I slowly stretched both arms outward and placed my hands on the dresser behind her, trapping her between them.
The space between us shrank instantly… close enough to feel the softness of her skin, close enough for the faint scent of her floral shampoo and soap to wrap around me completely.
I leaned slightly closer, my eyes never leaving hers. Looking deep into them, I murmured, “I’m looking exactly at what I want.”
Her breath caught.
Time slowed.
Neither of us moved.
Sunlight streamed through the thin white curtains, illuminating the tiny water droplets still clinging to her shoulders. Everything around us blurred. It was just her and me—her breath brushing softly against my skin, and the sound of our breathing filling the room.
The space between us purred with everything we had been holding back for so long—the unspoken words, the tension, the pull that had been building between us for months.
My gaze dropped briefly to her lips before lifting back to her eyes again. I could feel the moment tipping toward something neither of us would be able to take back.
And then her phone rang.
The sound sliced through the silence, ruining the moment between us. The device buzzed loudly against the dresser beside her, pulling us both abruptly back to reality.
I closed my eyes and exhaled.
Damn it.
37
JIYA
What happens if I run into Caleb?The question circled relentlessly in my mind as the highway stretched endlessly ahead.What will I say to him? How will I react if I see him standing there in front of me? And what will he say to me after everything that’s happened between us?
I shut my eyes for a moment.
Cole’s face flashed in my mind, pulling me back to the moment in my bedroom. My heart had been racing from how close we had been together there. I had been standing in nothing but a towel, and the way he had been looking at me made it feel as though something inevitable was about to happen between us.
Then my phone rang.
I hadn’t wanted that moment to end.
It had been perfect.
Cole had simply nodded, a small knowing smile tugging at his lips before he turned and walked out of the room. My eyes followed him until he disappeared down the hallway. A part of me had wanted to call him back, to ask him to stay.
Instead, I called Elle back.
“I don’t know if you want to know this,” she said carefully.
As I paced across my bedroom floor, clutching the towel against my chest, Elle explained that a woman and a child had been brought into the hospital where she had recently started working after being hit by a car while crossing the street. They urgently needed A-negative blood. Then she said the words that knocked the air out of my lungs.
“It’s Caleb’s mother… and his niece, Malaika.”
A cold chill had spread through my body as I sank onto the edge of the bed. The last time I had seen Malaika was when I had saved her from Jeremy—his name alone still capable of twisting my stomach.
When Elle suggested I donate blood, bitterness rose inside me, like poison creeping through my veins. I wanted nothing to do with Caleb’s family anymore, not after everything Eleanor had done—after the photographs she had placed in my hands that had destroyed my life with Caleb. It’d been her final victory—removing me from her son’s life.
“I understand,” Elle had said softly. “But what about the child? Did you save her from Jeremy only for her to die now because there isn’t enough blood? Would you feel the same way if something like this happened to Lucas or Emma?”
