Page 56 of Based on You

I looked at the heavy door I'd just come through, then slowly turned my head to look at the identical door directly across from it.

I went back in.

Violet was already sitting up, swinging her bare legs off the side of the mattress. She looked at me, bewildered. She looked past me at the open door. She looked back at me, her mouth already starting to form a question.

"Simon," she started.

"This is my room."

She pressed her lips together, fighting it. It didn't help at all.

We both started laughing at the same time, desperately trying to keep the noise down because there was an impressionable fourteen-year-old sleeping down the hall, which only made it worse.

"You're supposed to be the one leaving," I pointed out, once I'd recovered enough breath to speak. "This is my bedroom."

"You literally carried me in here last night!" she whisper-shouted. "You clearly didn't look where you were going."

"That's—" I stopped, conceding the point. She was right. I'd carried her up the main stairs and pushed open the first door I reached, and it had been my own, and I'd been too distracted to notice. "That's still somehow your fault."

"I had no idea." She was still laughing. She reached blind for the tangled sheet, pulled it around herself, and stood up with the white cotton wrapped like a toga. She crossed the hardwood floor toward me. "This is very funny."

"It is," I agreed.

She stopped right in front of me and looked up, the trailing sheet pooling around her bare feet. I pulled her in and kissed her deep.

"Go get ready," I said against her lips. "We're heading back to the city."

"Yes, sir," she teased, and slipped out the door.

She gathered her makeshift sheet and darted across the hall to the guest room. I closed my bedroom door and stood alone in the quiet, thinking about the night before.

She had a second tattoo inked at her waist, low, in elegant little script. I'd caught it when I was positioned behind her, the one Sloane had teased about at the restaurant, finally in front of me. It read harder, which wasn't what I'd expected it to say, and which had made the rest of the night a lot more interesting. The one on her inner thigh I'd already found. Baby girl.

I'd known this woman professionally for two years. I'd understood her competence, her sharp corporate capabilities, and I'd had no idea about any of this. I was glad to know it now. I intended to keep knowing it.

I showered, dressed in fresh clothes, packed my overnight bag, and headed downstairs.

Violet was already in the kitchen, her packed bag beside her. Her hair was pulled back, and she stood gazing out the large window at the glittering lake, nursing a fresh cup of coffee. She heard my footsteps on the stairs and turned around.

We looked at each other a long, loaded moment.

"Where's Olivia?" I finally asked.

As if on cue, the heavy front door slammed open and shut, and frantic footsteps hit the hallway floorboards.

"Coming, coming," Olivia called. She appeared in the doorway, already out of breath, balancing her overnight bag over one shoulder while juggling her phone, a thick book, and a bundled jacket in a messy pile under her other arm.

We loaded the car. Olivia claimed the front passenger seat. Violet and I slid into the back.

I didn't plan to take her hand. I just did it. My fingers found hers resting on the leather seat between us. She didn't pull away, and I didn't let go. The whole drive back to the city passed pleasantly, Olivia's loud playlist dominating the front seat while my thumb traced slow, absentminded patterns across the back of Violet's hand.

When we pulled up to the townhouse, Olivia scrambled out first. She marched around to our side of the car and looked pointedly back and forth between us, her arms folded across her chest.

"Did something happen last night?" she demanded.

"Mind your own business," I said.

"I can't mind my business. I want to know what happened."