Chapter 29 – Rowan #2
“They were doing more than just looking at you.” The words come out sharp and edged with the same possessive fury that made me grab that cigar.
Her expression softens, and I see the exact moment she understands. The moment she realizes this wasn’t about control or reputation. This was about her. About the way my blood still boils when someone treats her as less than she is.
“They were complimenting me, Rowan.”
“No.” My voice drops low, rough with the effort of not going back there and finishing what I started. “They were seeing you in ways no one but me should.”
The confession hangs between us. But I can’t take it back. I don’t want to. Because it’s true. The thought of anyone else looking at her the way I do, knowing her the way I do, touching her the way I just did—it makes me want to burn down more than just chairs.
She goes quiet. Not the angry quiet or the hurt quiet I remember from before. This is different. This is her processing the weight of what I just admitted. That after three years, after everything, I still think of her as mine.
We find our seats and her hand finds mine under the table, hidden by white linen.
Her thumb strokes once across my knuckles as conversations flow, but I’m only aware of her.
The warmth of her thigh against mine. The way she shivers when I trace my thumb across the inside of her wrist. The soft catch in her breath when I lean close to murmur something innocuous about the wine.
We’re performing for the room, playing the part of the devoted couple. But under the table, in the spaces between words, we’re having a different conversation entirely.
“Rowan,” she whispers.
“I know,” I murmur back, wanting to get out of here as fast as we can.
The trivia coordinator’s voice cuts through the room. “Time for Law where I’m strategic, she’s intuitive. We don’t just answer questions; we demolish them.
Her thigh presses against mine with increasing insistence. My hand drops to her knee, fingers curling around it with a possessiveness I don’t try to hide. She doesn’t flinch. Instead, she leans into the touch, her body canting toward mine.
It happens during a question about Miranda v.
Arizona—she knows the answer, I can see it in her eyes, but instead of buzzing in immediately, she turns to me.
Her lips form the words silently, that smirk playing at the corners of her mouth, and the look in her eyes is pure challenge. Pure invitation. Pure Tessa.
I’m not pretending anymore. I haven’t been since the moment I saw her in that alley with that dog. Maybe haven’t been since the day she left and took pieces of me with her.
And the way she’s looking at me—open, wanting, real—tells me maybe she’s not pretending either.
Maybe we’ve both been too scared to admit that some things don’t end just because you walk away. Some things follow you. Haunt you.
Her hand squeezes my thigh, bringing me back to the present, to the question hanging in the air.
“Miranda v. Arizona,” she says clearly, hitting the buzzer with her free hand. “1966. The right to remain silent and the right to counsel during interrogation.”
“Correct!”
She turns to me, triumphant, glowing with the kind of joy that makes her look like mine again.