Page 206 of The Heart You Kept

I wait as he showers and then eventually he comes back into the bedroom with a towel around his waist and drops it as he dresses into boxer shorts.

“Have you eaten?” I ask.

“Yep.” He pulls the blankets back and climbs into bed, and I know he’s lying. He hasn’t eaten all day.

“I’m going to stay on the yacht tonight, okay?” I tell him.

“Whatever.”

“I’ll be in the room next door; you call me if you need me.”

“I won’t need you.” He sighs.

“What if you have a bad dream?” I tease.

“Fuck off,” he replies with his eyes closed.

“Well, can I call you if I have a bad dream?” I smile.

“Get out before I kill you,” he mutters dryly.

I flick the light off and leave his bedroom door ajar. “Tomorrow will be a better day.”

“Stick to your day job, you’re a terrible therapist.”

“Sweet dreams.” I smirk.

“Shut the fuck up.”

EDWARD

I roll my lips as I park the car, can’t believe I’m about to do this.

I push through the doors of the antique store and walk in. “Hello, Helene.”

Helene turns and her face falls when she sees me. “What are you doing here?”

“I….” What am I doing here? “I need to know Alora is okay.”

“She’s fine.” She picks up the feather duster and walks to the shelving as if to dismiss me. Not one to be deterred, I follow her.

“Is she alone?” I ask.

“Well.” She dusts a shelf. “I talked to her a half hour ago and she was at the beach bar and she had just met a lovely man.” She keeps dusting. “Funnily enough…he just broke up with his girlfriend as well.”

I glare at her, my tongue slides over my teeth as I get a vision of Alora talking to another man, my fists clench at my sides.

“Where is she?”

“That is none of your business.”

“It’s all of my business, I want her to be safe.”

“Oh, she’s safe.” She smiles sarcastically. “But let’s be real for a moment, you don’t want her, you just don’t want anyone else to have her. But my prediction is that tonight she’s going to fuck you out of her system with a long, hard night grinding in the sheets.” She smiles. “And by morning she won’t even remember who you are. You snooze, you lose, Prescott. Letting her go was the biggest mistake of your life.”

My jaw clenches in fury. “I don’t like you.”

She shrugs with a smile. “But Alora does, and we both know that her opinion is the only one that matters.”