Page 262 of Romeo

“You know damn well what you’re doing.”

“Maybe.” There was a smile hiding in that one word.

I closed my eyes. “Next time,” I said, “I think I’d take my time.”

She didn’t answer.

I could hear her breathing through the phone, and knowing she was listening that closely made the words feel different when I continued.

“No surprises. No catching me off guard. I’d know exactly what was coming.”

“And that would make it different?” she asked.

“Very.”

“How?”

I smiled. “I’d get to enjoy watching you decide whether you’re still as brave when I’m standing in front of you.”

Her laugh came soft and breathless. “Maybe I would be.”

“Maybe.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“Oh, I believe you.” I leaned back on the bed, staring across the room at nothing. “I’m just looking forward to finding out.”

The flirtation softened into something else before either of us seemed to notice.

“I miss you,” Fiona said.

Everything in me went still.

No teasing.

No clever answer waiting.

Just the truth, offered quietly.

Church flickered through my mind again. Brandy. Hex. All those years and miles he’d put between his children and the life he’d left, only to discover distance wasn’t the shield he thought it was.

Then there was Fiona, half a country away because I kept finding reasons distance made sense.

“I miss you too, Cher.”

She let out a slow breath. “I wish you were here.”

My gaze shifted toward the closet.

For almost a year, I’d been the patient one.

I’d been so fucking careful with her. Letting her decide. Letting her grow into whatever this was without me leaning too hard on the scale.

That had been the right choice.

It still was.

But she wasn’t asking me to wait tonight.