Chapter 31 #2
“Dress however you want. You never get it wrong.” His smile is soft. “You’re beautiful no matter what you wear.”
The compliment settles over me like a childhood blanket, warming me from the inside out. I curl into the corner of his massive sectional, wrapped up in a throw that smells like his smoky, leathery cologne.
The fireplace crackles to life with the touch of a button, casting dancing shadows across the walls while soft music drifts from hidden speakers. He disappears for a minute and comes back out with two drinks in his hands.
“This place is too perfect.” I accept the cup of jasmine tea he offers, inhaling the delicate fragrance that somehow matches the peaceful atmosphere he’s created. I remember the moments before out on the beach. “What are you hiding, Crowne?”
He settles beside me with his own mug, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from his body. “Nothing but skeletons that need to stay buried.”
There’s a seriousness in his tone that I don’t like. I frown but shake my unease away. Nothing is going to ruin this evening.
Takeout containers from an impossibly expensive Thai restaurant are spread across the coffee table. The remnants of a meal that tasted like heaven but feels secondary to this moment of quiet intimacy.
It’s one of those rare instances where peace doesn’t feel threatened. Where I’m not waiting for the other shoe to drop or for someone to remind me I don’t deserve this kind of contentment.
I want to tell Jax I’m in love with him now, but I need a little more time to brace myself for his reaction.
“Let’s play a game.” I tuck my legs beneath me, suddenly feeling playful. “Twenty questions but with actual honesty. No lies, no deflections, and no corporate speak.”
“That sounds dangerous.” But there’s intrigue in his voice, the kind of curiosity that tells me he’s in no mood for surface-level conversations.
“The best games usually are.” I take a sip of my drink. “I’ll start. What’s the biggest risk you’ve ever taken?”
“Trusting someone I shouldn’t have.” His answer comes without hesitation, but there’s pain in his gaze that suggests the story runs deeper than he’s willing to reveal. “Your turn. What does love mean to you?”
The question hits like a grenade, stripping away all my carefully constructed defenses in a single moment.
I stare into the fire as the flames dance and flicker while I search for words that won’t make me sound like a broken little girl who trusted and was destroyed because of it. That is until now.
“Feeling safe enough to fall apart.” My throat tightens with unshed tears. “Knowing that someone will still be there when I’m an ugly mess and nothing like the person he fell for. Even if I screw it up and take something precious from him by accident.”
He studies me with those dark eyes, but he doesn’t try to fill the gap with empty reassurances or platitudes about how I’m stronger than I think. He just nods, understanding passing between us like an electric current that makes my skin tingle.
His reaction to my answer makes me brave enough to push deeper. “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done to someone you love?”
“I disappeared.” He faces the fire and stares into the space before him as if reliving something. “When going after them would have put them in more danger, I vanished and let everyone think I was as good as dead.”
The agony in his admission makes my chest ache. The image of him walking away from someone he loved to keep them safe paints him in shades of tragedy that explain so much about the bricks he keeps around his heart. Maybe that’s why he’s kept me at arm’s length all this time.
Will he retreat from my life when things get too intense?
Or what if somehow I fuck up and take something from him? Something like I took from Callum or my parents? What if I’m not done hurting the people I love to the point they can never fully forgive me?
“Your turn, mon trésor. What’s the worst thing you’ve done to someone you love?”
I swallow and give a half-truth. “You already know what I did. It’s what my entire business is built on.”
He sits with that for a moment, then sighs. “Let’s make this more enjoyable. What’s your favorite song?”
My heart shrinks, but I answer as honestly as I can. “I have more than one, but if I don’t say something from my brother’s band, I’m a terrible sister.”
He laughs, and the mood shifts in an instant. We continue the game for a bit as we fold the laundry he pulled from the dryer.
I smooth out wrinkles from our bedding while he tells me about the first business he ever invested in, a food truck that failed spectacularly when he was only eighteen.
I tell him about the first dress I ever sketched. It was a disaster of tulle and sequins that my mother diplomatically called “ambitious.”
He tells me about losing his childhood dog when he was five and how he still carries the plastic collar tag in his wallet like a talisman.
I tell him about the scar on my chin, how I got it falling off my bike when I was seven and how my mom was more worried about how it would photograph than whether I was hurt.
The conversation flows like wine, each revelation bringing us closer. Not the physical kind we’ve mastered in his bedroom but the emotional variety that leaves you naked in ways that have nothing to do with clothes.
Eventually, exhaustion creeps up on me like fog rolling in from the ocean. My eyelids grow heavy, and my head finds its way to his shoulder.
The steady rhythm of his breathing and the warmth of his body lull me into that drowsy space between wake and sleep where everything is soft around the edges.
I let my breathing slow and even out, almost drifting off while staying conscious enough to savor the feeling of being held without expectation. Without the need to perform, please, or be anything other than exactly what I am in this moment.
I close my eyes and melt into his arms, ready to fall asleep. His voice wisps over me like he’s sharing a secret with the darkness.
“You don’t have to be strong with me, Livianna.” His lips press against the top of my head and the words vibrate through his chest where my cheek rests. “Because I’d burn the world down for you and more. I’ll protect you always, and anything you need to be happy is yours no matter what the cost.”
My breath catches in my throat, but I force myself to remain still, to let him think I’m sleeping so he won’t take back the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me. The raw honesty in his voice makes my heart race against my ribs like a bird trying to escape its cage.
In this moment, something shifts between us. Something fundamental and terrifying and perfect all at once. He’s the only man who has never made me feel like I have to hold it all together.
And maybe...that’s what love actually is.
I only hope he feels the same because when I tell him tomorrow night I’m in love with him and if he doesn’t respond how I want, I’ll be shattered into a million bloody pieces, never able to recover from the loss.