Chapter Fifteen
Seraphina
Dandelions – Ruth B.
Iwake slowly, as though I am being returned to myself piece by fragile piece, carried upward from somewhere deep and unreachable and set gently back inside my body, and for a long moment I don’t open my eyes because I don’t trust the kindness of it, don’t trust that this softness has been given without condition, without cost. Flashes.
Blood. My heart hammering in my chest. Trey’s tattooed form laying limp on the cold stone floor…
The sheets are warm around me, cocooned close to my skin, and they smell of clean cotton and something deeper beneath it, something familiar enough to make my chest ache before I fully understand why, because my body recognizes it long before my mind can catch up.
I lie there without moving, suspended inside the quiet, afraid that any small shift will break whatever fragile mercy has found me.
Move. Check. To be sure.
The silence stretches, watchful and whole.
I hear them then…voices. Low. Male.
My heart falters, not in fear, but in something far more dangerous than fear, something that rises slowly and painfully inside my chest, something that feels like hope.
I listen without breathing, straining toward the sound as it reaches me through the walls, blurred at first by distance and sleep, until one voice separates itself from the other, and the moment it does, I know him.
I would know him anywhere.
Trey.
My hand rises to my mouth, holding in the sound that tries to escape me, because it feels too fragile to release, and tears slip from my eyes before I can stop them, warm and silent as they disappear into my hair.
Another voice answers him, and I recognize Chace too, the familiarity, the safety in knowing I am surrounded by something stronger than memory.
They are outside…close.
Close enough that I could call for them.
Close enough to know that they did not abandon me. That they will never abandon me.
I push myself upright slowly, my body tired, the sheets sliding down my skin in a whisper as light spills through tall windows and paints everything gold. Then I notice the clothes at the foot of the bed. A khaki bodycon dress. Simple and elegant.
And beside it, small and devastating in its meaning, is a black thong.
My lips part as a smile rises, fragile and unguarded, because he remembered.
He remembered me.
My chest tightens around the quiet devotion contained in the reminder of who I am, and I swing my legs over the side of the bed, my feet sinking into soft carpet, and I stand there for a moment simply breathing.
The bathroom is vast and beautiful in a way that feels almost undeserved, marble and glass and light stretching endlessly around me, untouched and clean.
I place the clothes carefully on the counter before stepping into the shower, and when the water begins to fall it surrounds me instantly, warm and steady, pouring over my skin like praise.
I close my eyes and let it touch every part of me, lifting my face toward it, letting it run down my throat and over my shoulders, and my arms rise slowly before I turn beneath it, once, then again, the movement hesitant but real, and something inside my chest loosens, something that has been held too tightly for too long.
My gaze catches on the bottles mounted along the wall, and at first they don’t mean anything to me, just shapes and colors blurred by water and distance, until my eyes focus properly and recognition begins to take hold, slow and disbelieving, raspberry and vanilla shampoo beside its matching conditioner, and then, just to the right, the vanilla body wash.
I stop breathing.
My hand lifts without my permission, drawn toward it by something deeper than thought, something instinctive and aching, and my fingers close around the bottle carefully, because already my chest feels too tight, already my heart knows what this is.
The lid opens with a soft click that disappears beneath the sound of the water.
I bring it to my nose, and the moment I breathe in, the world tilts.
Vanilla.
Warm and soft and devastatingly familiar, filling my lungs until it pushes everything else out, until it becomes the only thing I can feel, the only thing I can remember.
Suddenly I am somewhere else.
Not here. Not broken.
I am standing in his bathroom, laughing as Trey stands behind me with his hands on my hips, his chest to my back while he placed wet open mouth kisses on my neck, dragging his teeth along the shell of my ear.
I remember the way his fingers slid over my skin, unhurried, worshipful, the way he pressed into me.
“You always smell so fucking good,” he murmured against my throat, his voice low and certain, like it was a truth he carried.
I remember laughing softly, turning my head just enough to look at him.
“It’s just body wash.”
He kissed me again, slower this time.
“No,” he said.
“It’s you.”
The memory fades as quickly as it came, dissolving back into the present, leaving me standing beneath the falling water with the bottle clutched tightly in my hand and tears spilling down my face.
He remembered.
He remembered something as small as this.
Not because it mattered.
But because I mattered.
My chest aches with the weight of it, with the quiet, unrelenting devotion of a man who never stopped loving me, even when loving me meant standing in the path of destruction. Even when loving me meant his end. His death.
Maybe it’s over with Johnathon.
Maybe that part of our life has been buried.
But Gideon will not let me go so easily.
He will come back. He will fight.
And Trey—Trey will be there.
Standing between me him.
Standing between me and everything that wants to take me away.
Two men moving toward the same inevitable end.
The water continues to fall, warm and endless, washing over my skin, carrying away the tears as quickly as they fall, and I close my eyes, letting myself exist inside this moment for as long as it will allow me.
I let myself pretend I am not something broken and remade.
That I am just Seraphina. That I am just…his.
I stand there for a long moment after the bathroom door closes behind me, my hand resting against the wood as though I need its solidity to anchor me, my pulse still unsteady beneath my skin, because even now, even wrapped in warmth and safety and new clothes, there is a part of my mind that does not fully trust this reality, a part of me that is waiting to wake up somewhere cold and cruel.
Get a grip Seraphina. For you, for him. For us.
The dress feels like a promise I am almost afraid to accept.
The khaki fabric clings to my body like a second skin, smoothing over my hips, down my legs to my bare feet, and when I look down at myself, I am struck by the strange, disorienting sensation of seeing someone I thought I had lost forever.
My hair remains wrapped in the towel at the crown of my head, its damp weight a quiet reminder of the shower, of the warmth, of being allowed to care for my own body in my own time again.
I find myself smoothing my palms down the front of the dress without thinking, as though reassuring both myself and it that I am real.
When I open the bedroom door, the living area unfolds before me in soft light, and the low murmur of voices reaches me almost immediately.
Trey and Chace are seated on the large leather sectional near the center of the suite, their bodies angled toward one another in easy conversation, and the simple, ordinary sight of them—alive, unhurt, here—loosens something tight inside me that I had not realized I was still holding.
Trey looks up first.
The moment his eyes find me, everything in him stills, his entire body going motionless in a way that makes the air between us feel suddenly charged.
He rises without hesitation, without looking away, drawn toward me with a kind of quiet inevitability that makes my breath catch before he has even reached me, his feet soundless against the floor, his expression open and unguarded in a way that lays his heart bare.
When his hands slide around my waist and pull me into him, the warmth of his body surrounds me completely, firm and certain and achingly familiar, and I feel the fragile, broken pieces of myself settle instinctively in response.
“Good mornin’, baby,” he murmurs, his voice roughened by sleep and emotion, his mouth already brushing mine before I can answer.
The kiss is slow and unhurried, his lips moving against mine with a devotion that makes my chest ache, and I cling to him without thinking, my fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt as though he is the only thing holding me upright, because in so many ways, he is.
He kisses me like he has been waiting his entire life to be allowed to do so again, like this moment is something precious and irreplaceable, and when he finally pulls back, his forehead rests briefly against mine, his thumb brushing softly along my jaw in a gesture so tender it almost undoes me.
It is only then, as I open my eyes, that I realize we are not alone.
My gaze drifts past his shoulder, drawn by something I do not yet understand, and comes to rest on the far side of the suite, where two figures stand behind the large dining table near the windows.
A man and a woman, both immaculately dressed, their posture composed and patient, their presence quiet but unmistakable.
Between them, spread across the entire surface of the table, is a collection of jewelry, diamonds, so vast and brilliant that for a moment I cannot fully comprehend what I am seeing.
Rings.
Necklaces.
Bracelets.
Earrings.
Each piece catches the morning light and fractures it, scattering sharp fragments of brilliance across the room.
My breath leaves me as I look back to Trey, confusion and disbelief tangling together inside my chest.
He is watching me carefully, his expression softened by something almost shy, a faint flush visible high on his cheeks.
“I wanted you to choose,” he says quietly.
The words settle deep inside me, heavy with meaning.