Chapter 20 #2
“That doesn’t change what happened,” I whispered, forcing the words out, forcing them into something structured, something I could hold onto. “We can’t just—”
“I’m not pretending it didn’t.”
My breath stuttered.
“That’s not what I meant,” I snapped, the edge slipping in before I could smooth it out. “I mean we can’t just act like that was—like it’s—” I broke off, my throat collapsing around the words that refused to line up the way they were supposed to. “This was a mistake.”
“No.”
My jaw tightened. “Alois—”
“We’re not doing that.” The way he said it—like he was stating something already decided—sent something sharp up my spine.
“Doing what?” I demanded.
“Calling it something it’s not.”
My chest rose too fast, my breath stuttering as frustration pushed in hard and familiar.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I shot back, stepping closer without realizing it, the space between us dangerously shrinking. “What exactly would you call it?”
His gaze didn’t waver. “You and me. Together.”
“This isn’t—” I dragged a hand through my hair, pacing a step away before turning back to him, trying to find something solid to stand on. “This isn’t part of the plan. This complicates everything. My job—your situation—everything we’ve been trying to manage—”
“It already happened.”
“I know that!” The frustration cracked through, louder now, sharper. “That’s exactly the problem!”
“Is it?” The question wasn’t challenging. It was… curious.
“Yes,” I spit out. “It is. Because if this becomes something real—”
Too late.
The words were already there.
His eyes sharpened. A fire flashing against the pale blue of his gaze.
“If it becomes real,” he repeated.
My pulse slammed. “I didn’t say—”
“You did.”
My skin pricked, panic flickering just under the surface as I shook my head, backing up half a step like distance might give me room to recover. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Then say what you meant.”
I opened my mouth. Because the truth was sitting right there, pressing up against everything I’d built to keep it contained. But I didn’t have a clean version of it. Didn’t have a way to spin it into something safe.
“If this is real,” I forced out finally, the words stripped down in a way that made my stomach twist, “I lose control of everything.”
Ugly.
Unpolished.
Real.
“And if it isn’t,” he growled, “I walk.”
The words hit with harsh impact. Immediate. Solid.
I blinked, thrown off balance in a way I hadn’t anticipated, my breath catching as the weight of that settled in.
“You don’t get to decide that this means something because it’s easy.”
“It’s not easier,” I snapped, the words coming faster now, sharper, my control slipping in ways I couldn’t stop.
“This is the opposite of easy. This is everything I can’t afford.
My job, my reputation—if this gets out, if this turns into something people can point at and say I didn’t earn my place—”
“It already is.” The interruption cut clean.
I froze.
“They already say it,” he continued, quieter now, but no less certain. “They already think it.”
My throat tightened. “That’s not—”
“It is.”
I shook my head, backing away another step, the pressure building too fast, too much. “This could destroy both of us,” I groaned.
“You’re scared.” It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t judgment.
“Of course I’m scared,” I shot back, the words breaking loose before I could stop them.
“I just slept with the one person I’m supposed to be managing professionally.
The one person whose entire career I’m supposed to be protecting.
The one person who could take everything I’ve built and turn it into a joke if this goes wrong—in public, no less. With our boss in the next room.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“I know you wouldn’t do it on purpose,” I snapped, my voice shaking now, my chest tight, my hands useless at my sides. “But that doesn’t matter. That’s not how this works. One mistake—the wrong tiny thread that gets pulled—and everything unravels.”
I swallowed hard.
“And I can’t afford that,” I added, the truth settling in behind the fear. “I don’t have anything to fall back on.”
I forced myself to meet his eyes.
“That’s what this is,” I admitted, fight draining out of me. “This is me losing control of something I need to keep contained. And I don’t know how to do that with you.”
For a second, I wished I could take every word back—reshape them into something cleaner, something that didn’t expose quite so much—but it was already too late. They were out. Between us. Real in a way nothing else I’d said had been.
He didn’t move right away.
Didn’t answer.
Just watched me. Like he was seeing something he hadn’t before and wasn’t entirely sure what to do with it. Or maybe he did.
My heart kicked, uneven and too loud in the quiet, my breath hitching as the space between us stretched again—charged.
“Then don’t.” The words were low. Simple.
I blinked, thrown off just enough that my next breath came shallow. “That’s not—”
“Don’t control it.” He stood as his words filled the air, the movement unhurried. The dress slipped from his knee to the cushion beside him, forgotten, unfinished.
His full height closed the distance between us without him taking a single step.
My body reacted before my brain caught up. A subtle shift forward. A breath that didn’t come out even.
“You’re asking me to let everything fall apart,” I whimpered.
“I’m not asking you to do anything.” His voice dropped, threaded lust and memory.
My stomach flipped.
His gaze held mine.
“This doesn’t fix anything,” I whispered.
“I’m not trying to fix it.”
The honesty of that hit harder than anything else he could’ve said. Because it meant he wasn’t trying to make this easier. He wasn’t trying to make it safer.
He was just… standing in it. With me.
And for the first time since we walked through that door—I stopped trying to pull us out of it.
His fingers brushed my jaw, the touch lighter than anything that had come before and somehow more devastating because of it.
My eyes slipped closed for half a second. Just long enough to feel it. To register the difference.
When I looked at him again, something in my chest had already made the decision my brain was still trying to catch up to.
Something in his expression shifted—a faint flicker, but enough.
Then he kissed me. It wasn’t rushed. Wasn’t sharp or consuming the way it had been before.
It was slower. Deeper.
My hand came up without thinking, fingers weaving into the fabric at his chest, grounding myself in him this time instead of the floor, the wall, anything else I could pretend was steady.
His hand slid from my jaw to the back of my neck, anchoring me there as the kiss deepened just enough to pull something low and steady through me, replacing the sharp edge of panic with something warmer.
Quieter.
Certain.
I exhaled into him, the last of the resistance I’d been holding onto slipping away without a fight. Because there wasn’t one left to give.
Not when I knew exactly what I was choosing. Not when I was finally done pretending I didn’t want this. Didn’t want him.
His forehead pressed briefly against mine as the kiss broke, our breaths still uneven but no longer frantic.
“Bea,” he murmured, softened with something I hadn’t heard from him before.
Whatever was left of my walls—whatever I’d been holding onto out of habit, out of fear, out of necessity—gone.
I didn’t overthink it.
Didn’t second-guess it.
I just… let it go.
My fingers tightened in his shirt, and when I pulled him back to me, it wasn’t reaction.
It was decision.
He didn’t resist. Didn’t hesitate.
One step.
Then another.
The edge of the bed hit the back of my knees before I registered how we’d gotten there, the shift in height, in space, in everything around us happening without breaking the thread that had pulled tight between us.
His hand found mine, as if he knew exactly how much of this I was still processing even as I leaned into it. Even as I chose it.
I met his gaze one last time.
There was no question there.
No doubt.
No hesitation.
Just… him.
And the understanding that this wasn’t something we were walking back from.
Not after this.
I exhaled slowly, the sound softer this time, steadier.
And let myself fall into it.