Chapter 29
DEEP DIVE
RORY
I woke up snuggled against Rhodes, confused. He felt warm. It felt right. How had I let myself get wrapped up in this again, in him?
Then I remembered. His warmth, his laugh, the way he’d pulled me against him in the hallway last night. The way his gaze always sought mine, like it was us against the world—which it sort of was.
Images from our lovemaking crashed over me.
I’d never felt like that way before, and I knew I never would again.
Rhodes had cast a spell over me. Running my hands down his chest, feeling his body pressed against mine—I was ruined for other men.
I knew, deep in my heart, that I would only ever want my fake fiancé in my bed.
But therein lay the problem: he was my fake fiancé.
That one word was going to be my undoing.
To my heart. To my sanity. To the precarious situation I’d found myself in.
Because Miranda was coming for me. And she wasn’t just going to burn down my house—no, she was going to burn it all down.
Rhodes’s future. Luke’s security. Josie and Bo’s safety.
I was going to lose it all before I ever even had it.
None of my newly acquired hope for a better life was fair, I knew. I had stumbled into this arrangement by chance. The money from the contract was a gift from God; it wasn’t as though I’d done anything to earn it. Not yet.
The money wasn’t what was really troubling me, though.
And that was a giant red flag—because money was the only reason I’d come to Barrington Manor in the first place.
I hadn’t known Luke or Rhodes long, but I already cared about them.
My heart ached for Luke, the little boy who’d endured so much.
He’d already won my affection. I would cheer for that child for the rest of my life.
And Rhodes? Rhodes was a whole thing.
I watched his chest rising and falling as he slept. I pressed my face against him, reveling in his proximity even as I cursed myself for doing it, for feeling what I was feeling.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
When the wedding planner had asked about our vows, I’d blurted out a vote for writing my own.
Why? Because I was a sentimental fool, that’s why!
I was allowing myself to get wrapped up in my fake relationship, in a family that would never truly be mine.
I was letting myself feel things I was only going to pay for later.
Only I wasn’t supposed to be paying. I was supposed to be getting paid!
What was the matter with me?
Sighing, I rolled away from Rhodes. I knew the answer, of course.
Having an erratic childhood made me a prime candidate for latching onto anything that looked like love or approval, even when that was clearly not the case.
I had a broken emotional compass. I could think that things were going great when they were actually going directly to hell.
Which was why I avoided relationships at all costs: I knew better than to trust myself.
On top of that, I hadn’t told Rhodes about the conversation I’d had with Miranda. I needed to tell him about her threats, but I was scared to. What if he fired me on the spot? What if he called off the wedding and then demanded I repay my debts?
What if he sent me away?
What if I had to… leave him?
Restless, I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling. It was almost morning. The board meeting was today, and then the wedding.
If we got that far.
I closed my eyes, willing my brain to quiet down.
It refused, of course. It spun through scenarios of the board meeting, the seating chart, the flowers Genevieve had shown me in her color-coded binders.
I pictured Miranda’s face in the library, cool and certain.
Then Luke asking will you stay and Rhodes staring down at me last night, telling me he didn’t want to go back to the party.
I imagined the vows I wasn’t going to write.
I pressed my face into the pillow and made a decision: I was going to tell Rhodes about Miranda today.
After the board meeting. He needed to know she was having me investigated, and he needed to hear it from me, not from her.
I’d been keeping it to myself for exactly one night, and it was already eating at me.
I would tell him.
I would tell him, and whatever happened next, at least it would be honest.
With that settled, or at least filed away in the settled category, the noise in my head quieted by a degree.
The morning light behind the curtains was still gray and soft.
Rhodes’s breathing was deep and even beside me.
I let the warmth of the room, the expensive weight of the comforter, the distant sound of birds somewhere beyond the tall windows, pull me back under.
I fell asleep thinking about teaching Luke to dive.