Chapter 19 – Rowan
Chapter Nineteen
Rowan
Jerking off in the shower didn’t help.
I’m still hard.
Pacing the suite hasn’t helped either. The coffee’s cold, and nothing drowns out the fact that I can still feel her against me.
Tessa didn’t just move in her sleep; she reached for me, threw her leg over mine, pressed closer like she used to.
For a few hours, there wasn’t any distance or damage or silence between us. There was only her.
And I let it happen.
Now, she’s in the bathroom. The water stopped ten minutes ago, but she’s still moving around.
I can hear the quiet scrape of drawers and the faint click of bottles.
Every sound cuts through me because I know what she looks like right now—bare, flushed, trying to pretend she doesn’t know I’m out here thinking about her.
I shouldn’t remember her this clearly, but I do.
I remember the way she used to wake up, always stealing the covers and mumbling nonsense until I made her coffee.
I remember how her hand always found my chest, how she’d trace the edge of the scar near my ribs without saying anything.
I remember the way she used to look at me when she thought I was still asleep.
That’s what’s killing me.
Because last night felt too real. Her breath on my neck, her hand at my stomach, the small sound she made when I pulled her closer—none of it felt like a mistake. It felt like a memory I shouldn’t have been allowed to touch again.
I didn’t sleep. I just lay there with my hand on her hip, too aware of how easy it would’ve been to forget why I can’t have her. She was warm and close, and my body didn’t care that she was a problem I already solved years ago.
Now I can’t stop thinking about her. About the way she fit against me, about how fast I’d break my own rules if she asked me to.
The bathroom door opens.
I stop pacing but don’t turn around. Not yet. My jaw’s tight, my pulse won’t slow, and I already know what’s waiting for me.
The second I look at her—hair damp, skin flushed, still soft from sleep—I’ll lose whatever control I have left.
And she’ll see it.
She’ll look at me with those eyes that miss nothing, and she’ll know I’m still hard. Still wound tight from a night I didn’t plan and a body I never stopped wanting.
I exhale through my nose.
She doesn’t get to see what this does to me.
Not until I decide she can.
The door clicks open the rest of the way, and she steps out. Her hair’s damp, curling at the ends, her skin still pink from the heat of the shower. She’s wearing a soft blue dress that hits mid-thigh, and my pulse spikes.
She moves around the room, collecting things—phone, lip balm, whatever excuse keeps her from looking at me—and the quiet between us stretches.
“You’re dressed,” I say finally, because it’s better than saying the hundred other things sitting on my tongue.
She glances up. “That’s the goal when people leave their rooms.”
I take a slow drink of my coffee. It’s cold and bitter, but it gives my hands something to do. “You took your time.”
“I didn’t realize we were on your schedule,” she shoots back, adjusting a bracelet that doesn’t need adjusting.
I watch her cross the room, every movement deliberate and careful, and it’s all I can do not to follow. The hem of her dress lifts when she bends to grab her shoes, and I have to look away before I forget how to breathe.
She stands, slipping on her heels, and something about the way she does it—unhurried, unbothered—undoes me completely.
I drag a hand down my face and cross to the minibar. “You ready for breakfast?”
She looks at me in the mirror as she checks her hair. “Almost. Zip me?”
My jaw tightens. “You can manage that yourself.”
Her reflection meets mine. “If I could, I wouldn’t ask.”
I set down the glass. “Tessa.”
“Rowan,” she says, too lightly. “It’s a zipper, not a proposal.”
I let out a quiet curse and step toward her. “You have no idea what the hell you’re asking.”
She turns, smiling just enough to make it worse. “Then enlighten me.”
I don’t. I just move behind her, fingers finding the zipper, pulse already in my throat. The fabric parts slightly under my touch, revealing the curve of her back, and the air between us shifts again.
I tell myself to focus. To zip the damn dress. To remember who I am and what this is.
But then she exhales, and I stop pretending I’m unaffected.
I step in close enough that the back of her hair brushes my chin, and I have to remind myself to breathe through my nose instead of against her skin. The zipper waits, halfway down her spine, taunting me with every inch of exposed skin.
I touch her, and the temperature in the room changes.
Her skin is warm beneath my fingers, and for a second, I forget how to move.
I drag the zipper up slowly, my knuckles grazing each ridge of her spine, and she stops breathing.
I feel it—the stillness in her chest, the tension in her shoulders, the awareness that burns straight through both of us.
The hook at the top gives me trouble, or maybe I just give myself an excuse to stay here longer. My thumb slides against the back of her neck as I fasten it, and she shivers. It’s small, but I feel it.
“Stop doing that,” I mutter, my voice rougher than it should be.
“Doing what?” she asks quietly.
“Breathing like that.”
She lets out a soft laugh that isn’t really a laugh, and I have to close my eyes to keep from saying something worse. I stay there, my palm flat against her back, feeling the slow rise and fall of her breathing.
She smells like soap and citrus, clean and sharp and nothing like the perfume she usually hides behind. It’s too easy to want her like this—undone, still trying to pretend she isn’t trembling under my hand.
I lean in, my mouth close enough to catch the edge of her ear when I whisper, “You have no idea how much I hate this.”
Her breath catches again. “Hate what?”
“This,” I say, my words low, almost a growl. “Standing here, pretending I don’t want to touch you.”
Her eyes meet mine in the mirror. She doesn’t look away, and neither do I.
“Thanks,” she says finally, her voice unsteady.
I drop my hand and take a step back before I forget why we’re even here. My pulse won’t slow, my body won’t listen, and the only thing keeping me from pulling her back against me is the door waiting between us and the rest of the world.
“This doesn’t happen again,” I warn her.
She turns, a faint smile on her mouth. “Agreed.”
* * *
Tessa hasn’t shut up since we left the room.
Not in a talkative way. In a silent, pointed way. The kind where every step, every tug of the leash, every clipped breath says she’s fine when she’s obviously not. It’s worse than arguing. At least when she’s arguing, I can fight back.
We walk Waffles through the courtyard toward the restaurant. Tessa’s shoes slap against the pavement in short, fast bursts that match her mood, and the dog snorts at everything in sight. I’ve told her to slow down—twice. And she’s ignored me—twice.
I match her pace because arguing about speed would make it worse, and I already know I’m one comment away from setting her off. The silence between us isn’t peace; it’s control, and she’s holding on to it.
Waffles stops to sniff a patch of grass, and Tessa uses it as an excuse to take another half step ahead. I tighten my grip on the leash before the dog bolts, mostly so I have something to do with my hands.
“You’re mad,” I say finally.
“I’m not mad.”
She says it too quickly, too flat.
“You are.”
“I’m not.”
I exhale through my nose, fighting the urge to laugh. “Then stop walking like you’re trying to outpace your problems.”
That earns me a look—one sharp, warning glance over her shoulder that would make most people back off. I don’t.
“You think you know everything,” she says, voice even.
“I know you,” I say. “And I know that when you stop talking, it’s because you’re overthinking. Usually about me.”
Her jaw tightens. “You wish.”
“I don’t have to wish,” I say, catching her step until we’re side by side again. “I can feel it.”
She keeps her eyes forward. “You’re not that special.”
I almost smile because that’s the closest thing to banter we’ve had since this morning. The kind of normal we used to have before we complicated everything.
We walk another stretch in silence, the kind that starts pulling at my patience.
The restaurant’s in sight now, the gleam of glass and white linen already visible through the trees.
I should leave her alone, but she’s tense, and I’m restless, and I need to focus on something other than the memory of her back under my hands while I zipped her dress.
I clear my throat because the quiet is starting to get under my skin. “You can stop pretending you don’t want to say something,” I tell her.
“I don’t,” she says, eyes straight ahead.
“Liar.”
She exhales sharply. “Fine. I just don’t get it.”
“Get what?”
“This,” she says, motioning vaguely toward me and the suit I’m already regretting. “You could work anywhere, Rowan. You could walk into a hundred firms and get an offer tomorrow. You’ve got the grades, the record, the—”
I raise a brow. “The what?”
She hesitates. “The... terrifying calm.”
That earns a quiet laugh from me. “You think I’m calm?”
“I think you pretend to be.”
She’s not wrong, but I’m not giving her that. “And you pretend not to care.”
Her jaw ticks. “This isn’t about me.”
“It never is, according to you.”
“Don’t do that,” she says, stopping long enough for Waffles to sniff the edge of a planter. “I’m asking a serious question.”
“About what? My career?”
“About why you picked this firm.” She finally looks at me, her eyes sharp and searching. “Hale & Brooks is a machine. You know that. So why here?”
The question is too careful to be random. She’s not just curious. She’s trying to figure out if I’m self-destructive or just strategic.
I shove my hands into my pockets and keep walking. “Because it’s where the power is.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one that matters,” I say. “You spend three years in law school listening to people talk about justice and ethics and balance, but when you get out, all that matters is who has leverage. Hale & Brooks has it.”
Her steps slow beside me. “You sound like you don’t even like what you’re doing.”
“I don’t have to like it,” I say. “I just have to win.”
“That’s bleak.”
“It’s true.”
She studies me for a long moment, and I can feel it—the quiet shift between irritation and concern that she probably doesn’t even notice she’s giving off.
“You don’t have to prove anything to them,” she says quietly. “You’re already better than half the people they’ll hire.”
“That’s not the point,” I tell her.
“Then what is?”
We reach the restaurant steps. Waffles tugs at the leash, nose twitching toward the smell of grilled steak, and for a second, I envy the simplicity of that kind of instinct—want, take, done. But that’s not how I was raised. Not how this works.
I look down at her. “My father was a partner at Hale & Brooks. Years before he took the bench.”
Her brows lift, surprise flickering before she catches it. “I didn’t know that.”
“Not many do.” I adjust my cufflink—something to occupy my hands, something to focus on in order to keep my tone even. “He built half the litigation department. They called him the Kingmaker. Made sure I knew there wasn’t another firm worth my time before I even graduated.”
Her voice softens. “You wanted to follow him.”
“No.” The word leaves sharper than intended. “He wanted me to. There’s a difference.”
She studies me for a moment, and I can feel the next question forming before she asks it. “He’s... not around anymore?”
I shake my head once. “Heart attack. Three years ago.” I don’t elaborate. I don’t say that he died at his desk, or that the first call I got after was from his firm—not the hospital—asking if I’d be attending the memorial in chambers or the office one.
Tessa doesn’t say anything right away. The silence that follows isn’t awkward this time—it’s careful. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, eyes trained on the dog as if she knows better than to press.
“So this is about legacy,” she says finally. “Finishing what he started.”
“It’s about ending what he expected,” I correct. “On my terms.”
Her mouth parts, but the host at the door opens it for us, and I’m grateful for the interruption. I step aside, letting her walk in first. Waffles trots in between us with his tail wagging.
I follow, hands back in my pockets, pulse steady again.
Because legacy isn’t about who came before you.
It’s about what’s left standing after you tear their version of you apart.