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Nothing but a one-night stand and a bad idea.
Isn’t it?
I’m no closer to an answer by the time the eggs are almost scrambled with a sharp Gruyere—just in time to hear soft footsteps on the stairs warning me I’m not alone.
I should be tense with someone else in my very personal space.
I’m a private man to the bone.
Instead, I’m fucking smiling before I realize it, turning to watch Callie come padding into the kitchen. She trails the sheet wrapped around her like a rumpled gown, offering me a shy smile as she peeks out from under her scattered sex hair.
We hardly say a word to each other.
We don’t need to.
Her presence, her company, tells me it’s okay to bask in her aura in silence.
It’s easy. Quiet.
I serve up our food and we eat together over the breakfast bar before she vanishes to shower and somehow—through some alchemy of knotting, belting, and folding—transforms one of my button-down shirts into a cute off-the-shoulder mini dress. A sad replacement for the formal gown I practically dragged off her with my teeth.
Being together shouldn’t be so easy.
And letting her go shouldn’t be so brutal.
Especially when she stretches up on her toes and kisses my cheek at the door.
“I’ve got to head home to change before work,” she says. “And to catch Dad while he’s still fresh at the start of the day and willing to listen. I...”
She pauses, hesitates, and something in me clenches.
I want to pull her close, kiss her, tell her I’ll drive her home and take her to work.
Only, as I look down into those wide, pretty grey eyes, all I can think about is doom.
A personal apocalypse.
This life isn’t for me.
I’ll obliterate her.
I never learned how to love.
The life skills I’ve refined are destroying people.
I can’t do that to her.
I also can’t let her wind up on Vance Haydn’s radar more than she already is, or he’ll hurt her to hurt me—and she doesn’t deserve that.
So I only smile faintly.
“I don’t want to make you late. Let me know how things go with your father, yeah?”
“...sure.” Something flickers in Callie’s eyes before her smile strengthens. She rests a light hand to my chest. “Never to be spoken of again, right?”
“Not even in the smallest whisper,” I lie.
Fuck.
Keeping my ghost of a smile plastered on hurts.
I cover her hand with mine, holding it against my chest, and wonder if she can feel my heart beating like a jackhammer.
“Don’t worry, Callie. This won’t affect your work or any professional view of mine. Everything’s fine.”
“Work? Oh, I wasn’t worried about that.” Her hand curls against my chest. “I wasn’t worried about you at all.”
Then she pulls away, and it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done not to reach after her.
More so when she looks back at me with that same wistful smile and murmurs, “Goodbye, Roland.”
A second later, she’s gone.
Just a soft figure disappearing down my front walk and into the waiting Uber past my gate.
Gone.
It shouldn’t feel like getting buried alive.
I know I’ll see her again. At least once a week at staff meetings. Plus, at countless other all-staff functions or whenever the need arises to scrutinize Just Vibing.
So why does that goodbye feel so goddamned final?
And why does it feel even harder to let go when I’m doing it?
* * *
After this morning, I’m not expecting to hear from her again for some time.
Last night was shattering. Heated. The kind of fucked-in-the-head cataclysm you need space from to forget and make peace with.
I’m definitely not expecting a text less than ten minutes after I finish my morning meeting with legal. I’ve settled into my office to catch up on the day’s plans for my editorial team.
Callie: He said yes.
I arch a brow, staring at my phone.
That’s usually an internet meme involving a ring and an ostentatious proposal, I send back.
Funny how I can hear her laugh over text, even without emojis. It’s light, sweet, and probably makes her eyes crinkle up and glitter.
Callie: The way Dad was acting, it might as well be the same life sentence as marriage. He agreed to rehab. Didn’t even argue too much.
I nod approvingly at the screen.
So you think of marriage as a life sentence? I can’t help sending back.
Callie: Wouldn’t know, I guess. I’ve never seen one that lasted.
Ah, that’s right. Her parents are divorced.
A delicate subject, so I steer around it and send, I’m glad he’s come to his senses. How much did you have to lay on the guilt?
Callie: Does threatening to disown your own father count as guilt tripping?
Snorting, I reply, Only a little. You do whatever works to keep a man from killing himself.
Callie: Persistence. I learned that from you.
I don’t know how to take that.
If I’m reading too much into it, if she resents me for last night, seeing it as a ploy to get what I want and then toss her aside, or—
