Page 102 of On The Edge

And I fucked up by wronging her tonight.

“I’m sorry. You’re right.” I shrug. “It’s as simple as that. I can’t take it back. I can’t do it over again. I’m sorry.” This time when I reach out to run a hand down her arm, she doesn’t shrug it off.

“I’m sorry too. I overreacted. I shouldn’t have left, I shouldn’t have . . . I don’t know, but my feelings were hurt, and I didn’t know what to do. I’m surrounded in a world where everything is familiar to you and foreign to me. I felt alone and betrayed and . . . a little lost.”

“You have me.”

“Maybe someday you’ll let me in, Cruz. Maybe someday you’ll let someone in, because I promise it eases the burden.”

“I have let you in,” I say evenly.

Her eyes are sad as she nods. “You let me in until you get uncomfortable. But it’s when you get uncomfortable that you see the real person. The real you.”

“Cross,” I murmur to myself knowing she has no fucking clue what I’m talking about. And rather than asking, she stands there and simply stares at me. I can push her even farther away right now or I can do something I’ve never done before.

I can hold on a bit tighter.

“C’mere.” I pull her into me and wrap my arms around her. Her hair tickles the bottom of my chin and her heart beats against mine. She fits perfectly there and the thought is like a gut punch. She fits perfectly. “I’m sorry.”

The words are hard to get out. And not because they’re an apology. It’s because they are sincere. And it’s because she fits perfectly.

“I know you are.” She rests her cheek against my chest. “I mean, I could have really lived up to that lack of pedigree thing tonight if you’d have just told me. Thigh-high pink boots. Leopard-print bodycon dress. Hair teased out. You want to make a statement, I mean . . . I’m your girl.”

She looks up at me, her chin on my chest, and the sadness cleared from her eyes. Thank fuck for that. “He would die. Absolutely die.” I lean down and press a kiss to her lips. And I’d love every goddamn second of it.

She kisses me back tenderly. I never knew how relieved I’d be to be kissed like this. Simple. Without urgency. To just kiss.

We make our way downstairs. Into the condo. We change out of our clothes. We agree to a nightcap. I leave her on one of the chairs on the balcony to pour us a glass of wine, but when I come back out, she’s sound asleep.

Her hair is still pinned up, the fifty carats in diamonds we have to return in the morning still sparkle around her neck and on her ears, and my faded Gravitas racing shirt is the only clothing besides a pair of boy shorts peeking out beneath its hem.

I scrub a hand through my hair. “How the fuck did we get here, Madds, huh?”

I cradle my arm behind her shoulders and then lift her up. Her arms immediately go around my neck. “Cruz?” she murmurs.

“Shh. I’ll take you to bed.” But rather than turning into the first door on the right where her bed is, I keep walking down the hallway to mine.

Don’t ask me why because I don’t know. In all the time we’ve spent together, here in Monaco, we’ve never slept in each other’s beds. It’s been sex and then back to our respective rooms. A barrier of sorts for one reason or another.

But tonight, I don’t feel like being alone just yet.

I lay her on the bed and after I brush my teeth, I slide in beside her.

We’ve done this before—the sleep in the same bed thing—so it isn’t a big deal. But never like this. Never with her head on my chest, her hand on my heart, and her thigh draped over my own. Not with the scent of her perfume in my nose and the warmth of her breath on my skin.

I close my eyes.

I try to sleep.

But all I keep thinking about is how she ran away from me tonight. Although it was brief, that feeling was so familiar.

“When are you coming home, Mamá?”

“Oh, Cruzie baby. I’ll just be gone a day or two.”

“That’s what you said last time. It was weeks. You missed my kart race. You missed—”

“That’s the best part about being an adult, hijo. You get to come and go as you please. You get to make your own rules. I get to go and then come back to you and Sofia.”