Page 80 of Hidden

I could see through the mirror that he was angry. His breath was hitting the window in sharp puffs, but I had to let him see. He needed to see. It was time.

I reached up and unclipped one earring, then the other, setting them down on the vanity with deliberate care. ThenI peeled the first strap of my dress down one shoulder, and smoothed over the bruise with my makeup sponge.

His jaw tightened.

Even through the glass, even through the distance, I could see it.

I should have stopped there.

Instead, I laughed.

It was soundless, just a breath of amusement against my own lips, but he saw it. I knew he did. His palm came up and pressed flat against the window, and there was something in the gesture that went straight through me—something frustrated and needy and far too intimate for two people separated by glass and years of damage.

My fingers hovered over the little jar of cold cream on the vanity. I unscrewed it, dipped two fingers into it, and began smoothing it over the mark on my throat.

His eyes tracked the movement of my hand, the bruises, the evidence I could no longer hide from him, even if I wanted to.

I tipped my head to the side and let my fingers drag lower, tracing cream over the bruise above my collarbone, then down the line of my shoulder.

His hand curled against the glass.

A thrill went through me so sharply it almost felt like shame.

There it was—proof. Proof that I could still affect him. That I wasn’t just a broken thing hidden away in this house. That I could still make him look like that—like I was both his salvation and ruin, like one more second of this might drive him through the window.

I wanted more of that look.

I wanted to drown in it.

The thought was so ugly I almost recoiled from it, but not quite enough to stop.

My eyes went to the brush again, and when I picked it up, I remembered that other life, the one we had shared. He had brushed my hair for me after a ride in the rain because my fingers had been too cold to work the knots out. I had sat cross-legged on the floor between his knees in one of the back rooms at the clubhouse, both of us half hidden from the rest of the world, laughing every time he tugged too hard and I called him names for pretending he knew what he was doing.

“You’re dramatic,” he had told me, voice warm against the top of my head.

“And you’re useless,” I had replied, leaning back into him anyway.

The memory hit so suddenly I almost dropped the brush.

My hand stilled.

Outside, Vienna’s expression changed too, as though he had felt it happen.

And that was the problem with games like this. They only stayed games for so long. At some point, the truth crawled in.

I set the brush down and rose from the stool before I could think better of it.

The hem of my dress brushed against my thighs as I slowly crossed the room. He didn’t move, didn’t back away, and didn’t try to hide the face that all of him was focused solely on me.

By the time I reached the glass, my breathing had gone shallow. We were close enough now that I could see every detail of his face. The beard that had grown thicker over the years. The shadows under his eyes that were darker than they had been. The line of tension in his mouth. He looked rougher than the boy I had loved. Harder. More dangerous.

But there were pieces of Luke still there if you knew where to look. In the shape of his mouth when he was trying not to say something reckless. In the softness that always betrayed him when he looked at me too long.

I lifted one finger and pressed it to the glass.

Right over his heart.

His eyes dropped to it, then lifted back to mine.