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Benji and Matthew carried our mom back to her hotel room after dinner, the woman using the wedding and another country as her excuse to get buzzed for probably the third time in her life. It was cute, but only because I wasn’t responsible for tending to her. Amelia took over once we were in the elevator, listening to mom talk about how she thought Matthew was the most handsome man, compared to our father, and she wished she could have a marathon of every movie he made or starred in.
When the doors opened, Benji held them for me and I hesitated, one foot in the elevator. “I’m going to take a walk,” I told him.
Benji stepped back in and wrapped his arms around me in a quick hug. “Don’t do anything stupid, Mia.”
I shoved him away once the doors opened again and shook my head while we both laughed. Alone once more, I took the elevator back down to the lobby and across the marble floor to the drizzling evening. It was refreshing to be alone out there with the cool rain washing away part of the evening. I walked as far as Trafalgar Square before turning back to the hotel, carrying myself about twenty blocks total in my heels while flipping the hotel room key in my palm or spinning my new diamond bracelet the entire walk. When I thought about him, our night together and every night in between, with everything leading up to his kiss at dinner, my heart was a mess.
I was a sodden disaster when I got back to the hotel, not even sure what time it was. Returning the concierge’s sneer of distaste with a polite smile, I scooted through the lobby to the elevator and stood against the mirrored wall in the back to catch my breath. What I was about to do would change everything, but that didn’t stop me from pressing the button and watching the elevator pass over the floor my family’s rooms were on. Tapping the key in my wet fingers, I waited for the elevator to stop at the tenth floor, separating me from my family by six levels.
Tomorrow was the rehearsal dinner, the actual night I was meant to see Rhys, so whatever happened tonight didn’t count unless we wanted it to. We needed to finish what we started at dinner, so when I inserted the key he’d snuck into the box with my bracelet, I was determined. We needed to talk like we’d so easily done before.
The subtle squeak of his shower faucet turning off welcomed me into the puffs of steam billowing out from the open bathroom door as I stepped into his hotel room. Slipping off my shoes and coat, I leaned against the bathroom doorframe just as Rhys stepped out of the shower.
“You knew I’d come?” I nodded behind me to the two glasses on a tray with an ice bucket of chilled champagne. Beads of water dripped over his shoulders, trailing down his chest and arms. Neither of us was in a hurry to do anything about the fact he stood feet away from me with just a cloud of steam between us.
“I hoped you would,” Rhys confessed, his grin flashing through the steam. “Care to hand me a towel?”
My gaze flicked between the towel folded on the vanity next to me, and Rhys’s naked body. “Actually,” I paused, resting one hand on the towel with the other on my hip, “I think…” Rhys steadied himself, placing his hands on his hips and waiting for me to finish instead of getting a towel for himself.
“Continue,” he pressed, grinning at me. “I’m in no hurry. Looks like you could use a towel as well though, so while you’re teasing me, you could at least make yourself more comfortable, Mia.”
Rolling my eyes, I tossed him a towel. “What is it with us and bathrooms today?”
Rhys pressed his face into the towel, muffling his adorable chuckle. “Well,” he moved the towel to his abs, taking my stare with it, “they’re usually private, and they have doors that lock.”
“I wish you’d thought of that earlier,” I told him, not holding back my smile as my eyes rolled up to meet his.
Rhys’s hair was a damp mess, and I realized I’d never seen him so adorable before… Although adorable isn’t the right word to describe him in that moment, because he was stunning. Naked, wet, and smiling at me. Cocking his head, his mouth twisted into a grin as Rhys slowly approached me with his towel in his hands. He’d only dried off his face before lifting the warm towel to my hair, gently dabbing the rain from me as if I’d break with more pressure.
“You’re soaked.”
“Do you have a pair of pajamas I could borrow just for the night,” I blurted, lifting my hand to hold is against the towel. Our eyes met through the dissipating steam, with Rhys slowly nodding as he continued to dry what he could of the rain from my shoulders and hair.
Turning from him, I knew the sweat along my hairline wasn’t just from the steam of his shower. He followed me into the middle of his room, the white towel wrapped around his hips. His back to me, Rhys sorted through his suitcase until he pulled out some clothes and returned to the bathroom.
Two suits were hanging on a rack near his dresser. I assumed one was for the rehearsal dinner tomorrow and one for the wedding. He was going to break my heart in either, so I had to prepare myself, even though I’d just stood in his bathroom with fleeting puffs of steam the only barricade between us. When he called for me to meet him back in the bathroom, Rhys already dressed in gray sweatpants and a white t-shirt that hugged his body and arms as tightly as I wanted to in that moment.
He handed me a pair of navy sweats and another white t-shirt, and motioned for me to turn around. Lifting my foot to move, I stopped when his tug on my zipper yanked me back. It was beautiful torture to wait for Rhys to unzip my dress, his warm knuckles grazing the length of my spine as the fabric pooled at my feet.
“Thank you,” I murmured, looking at the clothes in my arms, nearly melting when Rhys took my bare shoulders into his palms, lowering his lips to my right ear from behind.
His stubble tickled and sent a shiver across my skin as he breathed. “You’re welcome, Mia.” I inhaled to steady myself before turning to face him, catching his brown eyes squinting with their own smile. “Get dressed,” he told me, “and we can talk.”
Rhys was standing at the large window overlooking the city when I came out of the bathroom, snuggled into his clothes. He turned when catching my reflection in the window and motioned to the bed with a sheepish smile.
“It doesn’t seem appropriate, but there’s only one chair.” Rhys combed a hand through his hair, biting his lip when I walked toward him.
Taking his hands in mine, I pulled us toward the bed. “Then we sit here together and figure this out.” Rhys kissed my hands before we sat down, his gesture calming and intriguing in a way that made me dizzy.
“Did you mean what you said at dinner?” I spoke first, which was probably all I could do to keep from climbing on top of Rhys and kissing him. “About being incredible and thinking men line up around the corner for me? They don’t, you know.”
His hearty laugh filled the room. “You’re blind then, Mia. I meant what I said to your mum, and what I started in the bathroom. I’ll never lie to you.” My gaze went right to his lips as he spoke, anticipating what they’d do next. “We never talked about that night.” Rhys’s gaze flicked between my eyes while I watched him, his knuckles grazing my jaw as a reassuring smile met his lips. “It’s always been more than just that night for me, Mia.”
Deep down, I knew that. We spoke too often, flirted too well, wanted to be together too much for it to be only one night. As perfect as we contained it in that one memory, I wanted it again as much as Rhys did. The difference between me from three months ago and me right now, sitting in his sweats on his hotel bed, is that I knew I didn’t need him to be happy. It was that I wanted him. He made me happy, and I needed that.
“I think we talked about it,” I considered, biting my lip in thought. “Talking until the sun rose for one of us, being the first person to call or text when something happened, smiling when those butterflies came. We might not have addressed it specifically, but that was our way of talking about it.”
Rhys nodded slowly, licking his lips. I followed him as he moved, his back pressed against the headboard.
