Chapter 16
Sixteen
The Line in the Sand
Kelly
The worst part about having the best sex with the right man was that afterward, all your old excuses died ugly.
That was what I realized around noon, standing alone in one of Roxanne’s guest bathrooms with a lip gloss wand in my hand and a smile I couldn’t seem to get rid of.
Not what have I done.
Just this ridiculous, glowing, body-deep certainty that I had made the right choice and all the old stories I’d told myself about why I hadn’t done it before were lying on the floor somewhere behind me, dead and useless.
I chose Xerses.
That was what made the glow feel so treacherous.
I twisted the gloss shut and stared at myself in the mirror.
I looked different. I mean I still looked like me, same eyes, same mouth, same hair and all, but something in me had softened or maybe the better word was settled.
Lightness entered me and I nodded. Yes, I felt settled into myself.
I laughed softly and shook my head at my own reflection.
“Get it together,” I muttered, but even that had no real force behind it.
I wanted more, more of him.
And maybe, if I was being completely recklessly honest with myself in Roxanne Norouzi’s giant white bathroom, I wanted more than just what happened and will happen again.
I wanted a future. Not a temporary lie.
I wanted a real future.
I opened the bathroom door and stepped back into the hallway, intending to go downstairs and pretend to be a normal woman with a normal amount of self-control.
The first thing I heard was Hope calling for me. Charlie responding too loudly. The whole house still in motion.
The sunroom had filled back up by the time we got there. Hope on the floor with one of the twins. Avril helping Roxanne go through something on her phone. Miley and Jeff in one corner with paperwork because those two needed legal documents to flirt properly. Charlie nowhere visible.
And Xerses,
He stood by the far windows talking to Michael.
He was handsome in that dark sweater with his hands in his pockets and his head bent slightly as he listened.
His gaze found me with that quick, immediate recognition.
I knew what I wanted.
And God help me, I wanted him to know that too.
He looked at me like he was reading something new in my face and maybe he was.
I wasn’t hiding anymore.
I crossed the room before I could think too hard about it.
Not all the way to him at first. Just enough that when Michael saw me coming, he glanced between us and, thank God, walked away without making it weird.
Xerses stayed where he was.
Waiting.
I stopped in front of him and looked up.
He looked down.
And the room around us lost edges the way it kept doing now, which would have been alarming if it hadn’t also felt a little beautiful.
“You good?” he asked quietly.
“I still choose you.”
For one second he didn’t move at all.
Then his whole face shifted in that small, devastating way only I ever seemed to fully catch.
Not surprise exactly.
I wanted him to know that last night had not been some one-off leap I woke up regretting under expensive guest-room sheets.
I wanted him to know I was still here. Still wanting him. Still standing in front of him with my body warm and my choice intact.
And because now I had said that much, because I had gone this far, I added the next truth too.
“I know your past,” I said. “I know who you’ve been with women. I know what Britney warned me about.” My voice stayed steady. “But I’m hoping it doesn’t matter if we want the same thing now.”
His eyes stayed locked on mine. “And what do you think I want.”
The question under everything.
I let myself be brave.
“A real future,” I said softly. “Not a fake one.”
The whole room seemed to disappear.
My pulse was loud. My skin warm. The air between us so alive I could barely breathe through it.
And then Xerses touched me.
Not my waist. Not my back. Not anything that would look like possession to the room.
He lifted one hand and brushed his knuckles once, very lightly, over the underside of my jaw.
The smallest touch.
“Good,” he said.
And because by then I knew him enough to hear it properly, I smiled.
And somewhere beneath all the wanting and the sex and the danger and the impossible family around us, I was starting to hope.