23. Millie
MILLIE
Isee the text just as I'm stepping out of the shower, water still dripping from my hair onto the bathroom tiles. My phone sits on the counter where I left it, screen glowing with Duncan's name.
"I'm coming over. You don't have to let me up, but I need to see you."
Sent thirty minutes ago.
My stomach drops. Hell no. What is he thinking? I'm wrapped in a towel with wet hair and no makeup and absolutely not prepared to see him right now, not after two days of radio silence while I tried to figure out how to survive this scandal without losing everything I've worked for.
I'm about to text back, tell him to stay away, when there's a knock at my front door.
I freeze. Water pools at my feet on the bathroom floor. My heart hammers against my ribs hard enough that I can feel it in my throat.
Another knock, louder this time.
I grab my robe from the hook and pull it on, tying the belt tight. My hands shake as I walk down the hallway toward the door. Through the peephole I can see him standing in the hallway wearing jeans and a dark sweater, his hair a mess like he's been running his hands through it.
I could pretend I'm not here. Turn off the lights, stay quiet, wait for him to leave.
"Millie." His voice comes through the door, low and certain. "All the lights are on. I know you're there."
Damn it.
I unlock the door and pull it open just wide enough to see him properly, keeping the chain still latched out of some instinct I don't fully understand.
He looks wrecked. Dark circles smudge the skin under his eyes, his jaw is shadowed with at least two days of stubble, and his mouth is pressed into a line that reads less as anger and more as sheer stubborn determination.
The sweater he's wearing is wrinkled like he grabbed it off the floor.
He smells faintly of beer and exhaustion.
"What are you doing here?" My voice comes out sharper than I intend.
"I needed to see you."
"It's almost nine o'clock at night, Duncan. You can't just show up at people's apartments because you suddenly need something."
"I can when the person is my wife and she's been ignoring every single one of my calls for two days straight." He shifts his weight forward, closing the space between himself and the doorframe by another six inches. His eyes hold mine. "Can I come in? Please."
"I don't think that's a good idea right now."
"Millie." He says my name like it costs him something. "Please. Five minutes. That's all I'm asking for."
I should say no. LaToya's voice is practically screaming in my head about distance and liability and protecting my career at all costs, about how the worst thing I could possibly do right now is let him back into my space when the entire world is watching.
But Duncan is standing in my hallway at nine o'clock on a Thursday night looking like he hasn't slept or eaten properly since the video leaked, and something in his eyes makes it impossible to shut the door in his face.
I step back and let him in.
He walks past me into the living room, then turns to face me. We stand there for a moment in silence, the door still open behind me until I close it with a soft click.
"You can't be here," I say. "LaToya said?—"
"I don't care what LaToya said. I'm not leaving you alone right now." His voice is steady, each word deliberate. "And I'm done lying. About how I feel, about what this is, about any of it."
"Duncan—"
"I love you." He says it like he's ripping something out of himself. "I've been in love with you for weeks, maybe months, and I know I was a dick to you when we were kids and I'm probably not the best person for you. But I want you anyway and I'm hoping like hell you feel the same."
I open my mouth but nothing comes out. My brain has completely stalled, stuck on the way he just said he loves me without any caveat or qualifier or strategic reasoning behind it.
Just: I love you.
He takes another step closer. "I watched that video a hundred times.
The one where I admitted I fell for you while you were planning our divorce.
And I kept thinking about how humiliating it was, having my feelings exposed like that for fifteen million people to judge.
But then I realized something." His eyes search mine.
"Being vulnerable isn't what scares me. Losing you is. "
"You can't just—" My voice cracks. "You can't show up here and say things like that when our entire lives are falling apart."
"Why not? What else am I supposed to do?
Sit in my apartment and wait for permission to care about you?
Wait for you to decide it's safe enough to let me in?
" He shakes his head. "I'm done waiting, Millie.
I'm done pretending this is just an arrangement or a strategy or anything other than what it actually is. "
"Which is what?"
"Real. This is real. You and me, what we have, it's the realest thing in my life and I'm tired of acting like it's not."
I can't breathe. The robe feels too tight across my chest, the air too thick. Duncan is standing three feet away looking at me like I'm the only thing that matters, and every wall I've built to protect myself is crumbling under the weight of it.
"Say something," he whispers.
What I should say is that this is a bad idea. That we need distance while the scandal dies down, that mixing real feelings with a fake arrangement is only going to make everything more complicated. That loving him is the most terrifying thing I've ever considered and I'm not ready.
But instead I cross the space between us in two steps and pull him down by his sweater and kiss him.
His mouth opens against mine immediately, the kiss hungry and desperate in a way that makes my knees weak.
His hands come up to frame my face, palms warm against my still-damp skin, and then his fingers slide into my wet hair.
He angles my head with a deliberateness that somehow makes the whole thing more intense, deepening the kiss until I forget where I end and he begins.
I press closer on instinct, my hands fisting in the soft knit of his sweater, and he makes a sound low in his throat that reverberates through my chest and settles somewhere deeper.
We break apart just long enough to drag air into our lungs, foreheads pressed together.
"Millie—"
I kiss him again before he can finish whatever sentence he was building toward, before either of us can think too hard about what happens next.
This time he walks me backward, slow but insistent, until my spine meets the wall next to the door with a soft thud.
His body presses against mine, solid and warm and undeniably present, and I can feel his heart hammering against my sternum as fast as my own pulse is racing in my ears.
His hands slide down from my face to my waist, tracing the curve of my ribs through the thin terry cloth.
His fingers find the belt of my robe, the fabric loose enough that it would take almost nothing to undo it.
He pulls back just enough to look at me properly, his gray-blue eyes searching mine with an intensity that feels like a question he's too careful to ask out loud.
I nod.