Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Northgate drivers were impatient at the best of times, but the delivery bikes were the worst.
The light flipped green for pedestrians. Bea stepped off the curb, thumbs still moving over her phone as she finished a reply to her best friend in Toronto, Claire.
A blur cut into her peripheral. Chrome. Motion.
The lean of a bike angling hard, engine whining as it tried to slip in front of her before she blocked the crosswalk.
There was a millisecond of realization that it was going to hit her—
—then strong hands locked around her hips and yanked her backward.
The bike’s slipstream blew past, exhaust sharp in her nose.
She gasped, the sound catching high in her throat, body humming with shock and adrenaline. Her fingers clutched the forearms on either side of her, solid muscle under her grip and pressed along her spine.
His hold didn’t loosen. Her back stayed flush to a broad chest, his breathing steady while hers raced.
She twisted around, hair brushing his shirt. Squinted up into the sun.
Green eyes. Unmistakable.
“Rafael,” she breathed.
“You weren’t looking,” he said. Not accusing, but definitely not pleased.
“I…thank you,” she managed, aiming for steady and missing.
She should step farther back, but her feet stayed rooted. Her ribs rose and fell too fast.
She’d never been this close to him before. Heat rolled off him, wrapping over her skin. Spice and woodsmoke slid into her lungs until she couldn’t breathe anything else.
Something in her—something quiet, stubborn, and not entirely new—stirred like it recognized him. Like it always had.
And then she realized: he wasn’t letting go.
RAFAEL
He hadn’t planned to touch her. Not like this. Not yet.
But when the bike cleared and she turned in his arms, something buried and brutal surged up, fast and without permission.
He kept her where she was, his hands twined at her hips, thumbs pressing lightly into the soft give there.
Slowly he let his grip shift.
One hand slid higher, into the indent of her waist beneath her ribs. The other followed, lagging by a heartbeat. He could feel the flutter at her midline, the warmth of her skin through her dress.
His thumbs met at her navel.
At the small of her back, his fingertips overlapped.
She fits.
He’d always known she would. Three years of holding back, and this was what he’d wanted first. Her waist in the span of his hands. Filling them, like she’d been built to be held by him.
The reaction was instant, the recognition total: blood surging, muscles locking, instinct roaring to claim her.
“Rafael,” she said quietly, the tremor in her voice matching the faint quiver in her body.
“You’re not with him anymore,” he said, voice rough with more than words.
She didn’t reply. He forced himself to stay still, reading her—the parting of her lips on the exhale, the unsteady flicker at her pulse—every cue telling him she wasn’t ready.
Inside, the fire pressed hard against his ribs, demanding more. He reined it in, barely. She might splinter if he pushed too far now.
“You need to be careful, little Bea.”
For a heartbeat, she just gaped at him like he’d set fire to the ground under her feet. Then she stepped back. He forced his grip to loosen, muscles protesting the loss.
“I will.”
He let her go. But the feel of her stayed, burned into his hands.
“You know what kills me?” Claire Park’s voice came through in surround-sound sass, undercut by the hiss of her kettle. “I could’ve been waking up in eternal summer with you, but nooo, I had to be a responsible human who didn’t apply to fantasy island.”
Bea smiled feebly at her phone. Toronto was framed by Claire’s kitchen window, pale winter light spilling over the steam curling from her mug. Outside, snow clung to rooftops like the season had no intention of leaving.
“You could be here right now,” Bea agreed. “Instead, you’re still slumming it in a refrigerated shoebox.”
Claire pouted. “You’re trying to hurt me.”
Bea shifted on her bed, cross-legged with a cushion in her lap, idly smoothing the seam with her thumb. The ceiling fan traced lazy circles above, pushing warm air over her bare legs. “It’s eleven p.m. in February. I’m in shorts. I could get ice cream without putting on socks.”
“Yeah well I could make ice cream…with the frost piling up on my windows.”
Bea smiled. “Can’t Marco do something about that? He walks into a room like he’s already planning how to rebuild it.”
Claire’s grin warmed her whole face, thinking about her beau. “That’s just his structural engineer brain. He can’t turn it off.”
“Must be exhausting,” Bea said, tucking her chin into the cushion.
“It’s not so bad. The man can spot a safety hazard from thirty feet away.”
“Handy. I could’ve used him today.”
Claire narrowed her eyes. “Why?”
“Well, for starters, I almost got run over.”
Claire’s head snapped up. “Where?”
“Crosswalk. Delivery bike tried to squeeze in front.” Her grip on the cushion tightened. “Thankfully someone pulled me back.”
Claire leaned forward, spotting the thread worth pulling. “You’re burying the lede. Who?”
Bea exhaled. “Rafael.”
There was a miniscule pause as Claire seemed to sift through her mental folio of people in Bea’s world. “The man you once described as ‘dangerous in ways I don’t have vocabulary for’? The one you’ve always had a weird thing that’s not a thing with?”
“I don’t have—” Bea stopped. “Yes.”
Claire set her mug down. “Details. Go.”
Bea pushed her hair back, regretting this already. “He…didn’t just grab my arm. He pulled me back by the hips.”
She could still feel the sure clamp of his hands, how solid he’d felt behind her, the hard line of his chest against every vertebra. He could have held her there forever.
Claire pressed her lips together. “I mean, I guess you have bones there, too.”
“And then…higher. Around my waist. I mean completely around. My waist fits in his hands, Claire Bear.”
Her skin still knew exactly where his thumbs had pressed in.
The memory replayed whether she wanted it to or not, each time sharpening the details: the heat of his palms, the flex of his fingertips on her back, the way he’d peered at her like he was holding back something bigger than either of them.
“My, my,” Claire said, eyes alight over the rim of her mug. “And then what happened?”
“He told me to be careful. And I don’t think he just meant about traffic.”
“Fair warning.” Claire’s dark eyes gleamed, surely filing this tidbit away for future dissection. “Oh Rafael, what are you up to?”
Bea groaned. “It’s not like that.”
“Mm-hmm.” She leaned closer to the camera. “You’re still grieving Mr. King Global Capital, which means you’re prime target for waist-holders with green eyes.”
“It’s only been seven weeks. I’m not over Gage.”
“Exactly.” Claire sipped her tea. “You’re vulnerable, a little lonely, and a very large man just put his hands exactly where your brain files ‘safe’ and ‘dangerous’ in the same folder. That’s a recipe.”
“For what?”
“Regret. Or marriage. I don’t think in the UR there’s an in-between.” Claire shrugged. “But just so we’re clear, you’re not allowed to marry anyone without me vetting them first.”
Bea’s brain chased the tangent. “Is there a scoring system?”
“I have a spreadsheet,” Claire said matter-of-factly. “Columns for red flags, green flags…bonus points for being good with kids under seven, automatic disqualification for misusing apostrophes.”
“I’m scared to ask how many people you’ve got on it.”
“For you? Three. And one of them’s fictional.”
Bea almost asked if Rafael was on the list, but caught herself. That wasn’t a rabbit hole she was ready for, and she didn’t need more reasons to think about him. She lay back on her pillow, turning to her side, the cushion sliding to the floor.
“On a scale of terrible to vaguely okay, where are you today?”
“I’m…functional.”
“That’s not the same as okay,” Claire schooled her. “I mean, you were here for a month and we couldn’t quite get you there, even with the K-drama marathons, dumpling nights, walks down by the lake—”
“Making me help you shovel your driveway,” Bea added, tapping an accusing fingernail lightly against her phone screen.
“Physical labor builds character.” Claire fished around off-screen, then returned with a hair tie.
Bea buried her face into her pillow. “I never messaged him back.”
“Gage?”
She nodded.
“Probably best you didn’t.”
“I know.”
“He’ll understand,” Claire said. “You’re building different lives now.”
Bea’s heels pressed into the mattress, a quiet reminder: this was the life she’d chosen. The one she’d learn to love. “No looking back.”
“Exactly.” Claire reached for her mug, eyes narrowing. “Now, tell me what you had for dinner before I get Imo on this call and she makes you eat on camera.”
Later that night, after their video call had ended and the lights were off, Bea shifted from side to side. The pillow under her cheek refused to feel right. Her brain wouldn’t turn off.
She reached for her phone in the dark, the screen lighting up when she tapped it. One eye open, she thumbed into the Notes app, half to distract herself, half to see what ghosts were still living there.
MOVING TO LONDON??
QUESTIONS FOR GAGE
UR Countdown Coffee List
She sat up. Her fingers traced the words almost reverently.
And then, before she could stop herself, she deleted the first two notes with quick swipes. Saved the last one as a souvenir. She wasn’t trying to forget the past, just move on from it.
From experience she knew that sometimes the easiest way to clear the static was to type the words out so they stopped rattling around in her head.
She’d joked to herself once, early in her first relationship, that she’d probably end up writing bad poetry about it.
There was always truth in humor.
Her thumbs hovered over the keyboard.
For G
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
You were the wall, steady and tall—
And I’m the one who broke it all.