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“Are you fucking kidding me,” she breathed.
Exactly twenty minutes prior, she’d have still been in her silk dress and tummy-smoothing shapewear, fortified by the cosmetic armor of perfectly winged eyeliner, mascara, and matte rose lipstick. Now, this beautiful, surly looking man was outside her door in the remnants of a designer tuxedo, and she wore a huge, hideous, lime-green sweatshirt with aSAGE AGAINST THE MACHINEappliqué and a decade-old coffee stain on the arm. Her eyes were so grainy she couldfeelthe redness in them, and her hair hung lank around her face, like the mane of a russet Highland cow.
“Screw it,” she mumbled, and cracked the door open. “Hi.”
Her tight-lipped smile was an attempt at lukewarm and courteous, but Rowan was too exhausted to care if it came across as grumpy.
“Hi.” He looked surprised she’d answered. “Busy?”
She gestured to her sweatshirt. “As you can see, I’m preparing to entertain several heads of state.”
He held up her lost shoe. “This yours?”
She plucked it out of his hands and tossed it behind her. “Call me Cinderella.”
Harrison smiled distractedly and glanced down the hall again. “Ah—can I come in?”
A closer look revealed genuine anguish in his eyes. She sighed and opened the door wide enough for him to step around her. When the door closed, they stood in the little foyer for several beats, motionless mirror images.
The top three buttons of his soft white shirt were open at the neck. Sleeves were tacked up to his elbows. She watched the agitated flex and release of lean muscles and tendons in his forearms as he messed with something deep in his pockets.
Rowan imagined—remembered—those same muscles orchestrating the movement of his fingers inside her.
Stop it.
They both spoke at the same time.
“I need you to—” she began.
“I think we—” he said.
They both cut off. Harrison winced.
“You go,” Rowan said.
He freed a hand from a pocket and scratched the back of his head.
“I’ve—made a mistake.” He straightened and squared his shoulders.
Of course. A mistake.
Something she’d done today must have finally made him see her for what she was. Amid the misty romanticism of tulle skirts and sleek black tuxedoes, silverware tinkling against champagne glasses, and all the cliché love songs at the reception, Rowan was a denier, a defier, and an outlier. The fly in the wedding cake’s frosting.
This was what she’d wanted, right? It’s why she’d used poor Augustus as her own personal Johnny Castle on the dance floor tonight. A human shield between Harrison and her big scary fucking feelings.
Right?
She recalled the morose way Harrison had peered into his champagne during the toasts to the bride and groom. That’s probably when it had hit him. God, she was foolish. “You don’t have to say—”
“Please, let me finish. Before I mess up again.” He looked at the ceiling, then back to her. “Back in September, I came home to focus. To recenter myself. To—ah, fix some things that are broken.”
She tugged the sweatshirt’s hem farther down her legs. It hit midthigh, longer than the dress she’d worn all night, but she suddenly felt very exposed. She braced herself for the platitudes. For the excuses, and the goodbye. “Well, tonight, you should probably go fix them somewhere else,” she said.
Harrison moved in close. She averted her eyes to the carpet. The tips of his fancy shoes were stark black, aggressively shiny. They looked ominous next to her own bare, vulnerable toes.
“Where do you suggest I go, Rowan? And would it matter if I did?” He paused. She remained silent. His voice dropped to a low murmur. “Look at me.”
Rowan barely breathed. Slowly, she looked up and stared at the notch between his collarbones framed by the open neck of his white shirt. She wanted to put her mouth there.
