Page 49 of His Vow

She felt the desperation. Met it. Her legs wrapped around me, her heels pressing into the backs of my thighs, pulling me closer, deeper. Her pace matched mine. Her fingers raked across my hair. She held my face in both hands and forced my eyes to hers.

"Stay with me," she whispered.

I kissed her instead of answering.

Her breathing slowed against my chest. My hand moved through her hair, the curls separating and falling between my fingers. She traced patterns on my skin.

The lamp cast amber light across the ceiling. The paintings leaned against the walls, faces hidden, holding the private things she'd shown me and no one else.

I opened my mouth.

There's something I need to tell you about my sister.

The sentence was right there. Solid. Ready. Ten words that would change everything — the vendetta, the plan, the reason I walked into her gallery, the reason I was lying in her bed. Ten words that would give her the one thing I'd been withholding since the night she gave me her number with a sun emoji and told me not to wait three days.

The truth.

Nothing came out. I closed my mouth.

She looked up. Her chin on my chest. Her eyes soft, searching. "What?"

"Nothing."

She studied me. The crease appeared between her brows. Her eyes moved across my face. She was looking for the wall. The blank thing. The door that slammed shut every time the phone buzzed or the world pressed in.

She didn't find it. Because it wasn't there. What was there was worse — a man lying in the dark with his mouth full of truth and his jaw locked shut. Not because the wall was up. Because the wall was down, and he still couldn't speak.

"Whatever it is," she said quietly, "you can tell me when you're ready."

She kissed my chest. Settled back against me. Her breathing evened out within minutes. Her hand went slack on my ribs.

I didn't sleep. I lay in the dark with the woman who trusted me completely and the truth I couldn't give her and the gala invitation sitting in my inbox like a countdown to the end of everything I'd built and everything I was about to destroy.

FIFTEEN

SOLEIL

His face in sleep was the only version of him without the guard.

I lay on my side watching him — tracing the lines, reading what the artist left exposed. His jaw was slack, the tension that lived there during waking hours dissolved into something softer. Younger. A scar on his right knuckle I'd never asked about caught the early light. His hand was curled around my hip even in sleep, his fingers pressed into the curve of bone like he was holding me in place.

I slipped out from under his arm and padded across the cold floor to his closet. The row of black suits hung in perfect formation. I reached past them and found the navy. The one from the fitting room. The one I'd unbuttoned with my teeth while the mirror fogged behind us.

I laid it across the chair beside his bed, found a pen on his nightstand, and wrote on the back of a receipt: Wear this. For me.

His kitchen was becoming mine. I knew where the mugs were, which burner ran hot, how to angle the French press so the grounds didn't escape. The coffee I made was terrible. I knew it was terrible. He knew it was terrible. He drank every cup I gave him without expression, and the fact that he never said a word about it had become one of my favorite things about him.

I was pouring the second cup when his footsteps came down the hall. I turned.

He stopped in the doorway. His eyes moved from my bare legs to the hem of his shirt hanging mid-thigh to my face, and the look he gave me — slow, unhurried — warmed my skin.

"Morning," I said.

He crossed the kitchen. His hands found my waist and lifted me onto the counter.

I wrapped my legs around him. The coffee sat untouched behind me, steam rising between us. His mouth found mine — warm, tasting like sleep, the kiss slow and deep, his hands sliding up my thighs beneath the shirt.

My fingers traced his jaw. The stubble was rough under my fingertips. I pulled him closer. The kiss deepened, which made my toes curl against his lower back.