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After I’m washed and smelling like a normal human again, I slip into the main room with a towel wrapped around my body. Bass is waiting, to my deep embarrassment, but fortunately, he doesn’t make a thing of it. Instead, he walks me to the enormous closet and shows me around.
“Everything’s for you,” he explains, rifling through leggings, jeans, sweats, running his fingers over hanging sweaters and jackets. “Lia helped but mostly it was a very nice personal stylist in the city. If you hate it all, we’ll get rid of it and find something more to your taste.”
“No, this is actually… really nice.”
“You’re pleased?”
I choose a pair of jeans and a simple button-down. “I know I’ve been crabby since we got married, but can you blame me?”
“No, not really.”
“This is nice though. I don’t want to be a total dick about everything. I’m really going to try, okay?”
“I will make sure my expectations are rock bottom.”
I laugh despite myself. “I’m not that bad, come on!”
“My love, I think you’d grow wings and fly into the sun to escape me if you could.” He says it with a smile but I go very still. There’s a moment where his words hang between us, my love, like he didn’t realize he said it. But maybe he notices how pink my cheeks turn and how my heart rate doubles and his frown comes back. “It was only a pet name. It slipped out.”
“Right, no, I know.”
“Did it bother you?”
“No, no, it’s fine. I don’t mind. I mean, you don’t actually—”
“Love you?” His eyes seem to sparkle with an intense amusement. “That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?”
“Bass…”
He comes closer. I bump against the back wall, breathing quickly. “Would it make our marriage more difficult if I did fall for you?”
“Probably.”
“In what way?”
“There’s an end date to what we have. But love doesn’t disappear when we want it to.”
He stops inches from me. I’m afraid he’ll rip off my towel. And if he does, I doubt I’ll stop myself from kissing him. The idea of Bass falling for me is absurd, it’s silly and stupid, but there’s a lust-drunk part of my brain that likes the thought. That wants him smitten with me. Obsessing about me. Worshipping every inch of me with that dirty mouth, those skilled hands, that massive—
“I learned a long time ago that nothing is forever,” he says softly and there’s a hint of pain in his voice. “I cherish what I have when I have it. I protect what I care about. But I also keep my promises. Don’t worry, my love, it doesn’t matter how I feel about you.” He touches my cheek and I shiver with a terrified delight. “When the time comes, you’ll be free.”
Then he leaves me to get changed alone in the closet.
I’m trembling as I pull on my jeans and shimmy into my shirt. When I’m done, I linger in the suite. All the lights are on, which is strange. Despite the sun streaming through the windows. Bass always does that, doesn’t he? Every room he’s in, he flicks on all the switches.
What does that man want from me? And what am I going to do for the next five years?
I don’t want attachments. I’ve avoided them like the plague ever since Danny and my first failed escape attempt. Cruz is about the only person in the world I really love and even that feels like a liability half the time.
What happens if I start to develop feelings for my husband? What if I start to fall for him and for this place?
I can’t let that happen.
Even if it hurts like hell.
15
MARI
