Chapter 18
It’d been four weeks of this, and she still wasn’t used to it.
She thought she would be by now. She thought the intensity would fade into something manageable, something she could tuck away and access when needed before setting it aside again.
That was how it had worked with Valerie, back when things were still good between them—or what passed for good—just a physical release that never quite touched anything too deep.
This was nothing like that.
Miller shifted, pressing a lazy kiss to Astoria’s throat before rolling onto her side.
Her hand found Astoria’s hip, her fingers tracing idle circles on the bone.
The gesture was automatic, the kind of intimate touch that came from knowing someone’s body well enough that you didn’t have to think twice about where to put your hands.
“You’re quiet,” Miller observed.
“I’m always quiet.”
“Different quiet.” Miller looked up at her, studying Astoria’s face in the low light. “Is it good quiet or bad quiet?”
Astoria paused and considered the question, tuning into her thoughts and letting the room’s ambience fill the silence. “Good quiet,” she said eventually. “I think.”
Miller’s mouth curved upward. “You think?”
“I’m not used to this.”
She felt Miller’s hand stop circling on her hip. “Used to what?”
Feeling like this, wanting someone this much, being wanted back without conditions attached, she wanted to say.
“Feeling…settled,” Astoria said again. It was close enough to the truth. “After, I mean.”
Miller was quiet for a moment, then she leaned down and kissed Astoria’s shoulder, soft and unhurried. “I know what you mean.”
She did. That was the terrifying part. Miller understood things Astoria didn't say; she heard the words underneath the words. It should have felt invasive, but it felt relieving, like setting down something heavy she'd been carrying so long she'd forgotten it had weight.
Astoria turned her head to look at her. Miller's hair was a mess, tangled from Astoria's fingers, and there was a flush still high on her cheeks. She looked rumpled and satisfied and completely unguarded, and something in Astoria's chest clenched at the sight.
Remember this, some deep instinct whispered. Pay attention. Be here now.”
She didn’t know where the thoughts came from, only that it felt necessary, like her body had picked up on something that her mind hadn’t caught up to yet.
“What time is it?” Miller asked.
Astoria didn't want to know. Knowing meant acknowledging that this had an end point, that soon she'd have to get dressed and walk out of this room and go back to her empty house and her complicated life.
For now, she wanted to stay in this suspended space where nothing existed except the two of them and the sheets tangled around their legs.
“Late enough,” she said.
Miller laughed, a low and warm sound that filled Astoria. “That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I’m giving you.”
“Stubborn.”
“You knew that when you started this.”
Miller’s face softened. “I did. I do, and I’m not complaining.”
Astoria reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind Miller’s ear. The gesture felt dangerously domestic, the kind of thing couples did—real couples, ones who woke up together and made coffee and didn't have to check out of hotel rooms before midnight to avoid leaving a trail.
She pulled her hand back, as if it were burned. “We should probably…”
“I know.” Miller signed but didn’t move.
“Five more minutes?” Five more minutes. Astoria could give both of them that.
She closed her eyes and let Miller's warmth soak into her skin, memorizing the weight of her, the rhythm of her breathing, the particular way she smelled like sex and expensive hotel soap.
Remember this.
The thought came again, more insistent now. Astoria pushed it away and held on to the moment instead of analyzing it, knowing even as she did that moments like this didn’t last.
They never did.
But this time, five minutes turned into ten, then fifteen. By the time Astoria finally made herself move, the clock on the nightstand read 10:47 p.m.
“I have to go,” she whispered and hated how much she didn’t want to.
Miller stretched beside her, catlike and unhurried. “I know.”
They’d developed a rhythm for this part too.
Astoria dressed first while Miller watched from the bed, openly appreciating the view in a way that made Astoria's skin warm even now.
Then, there was the goodbye at the door—never rushed, never performative, just a kiss that communicated until next time without either of them having to speak the words.
Tonight, Astoria took longer than usual buttoning her blouse. Her fingers felt clumsy and reluctant.
“Hey.” Miller appeared beside her, still wrapped in the hotel robe. She caught Astoria's hands, stilling them. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Astoria managed a smile. “Just tired.”
“Liar.” But Miller had said it gently without accusation or malice. She finished the rest of the buttons herself, smoothing the fabric over Astoria’s shoulders. “There. Presentable.”
“Thank you.”
“Text me when you get home?”
It was a small thing, the kind of request that should have felt ordinary, but somehow it undid Astoria more than anything else. Valerie had never asked her to text when she got home. Valerie had never cared whether Astoria arrived safely or at all.
“I will,” she said and meant it.
Miller walked her to the door—a part of their routine that was completely unnecessary, almost silly in a hotel room this small—but Astoria had come to crave those extra seconds. Miller's hand found the small of her back as she reached for the handle.
“Goodnight,” Miller said softly.
Astoria turned. Miller was so close, her face tilted up, her lips slightly parted. The robe had slipped off one shoulder, exposing the collarbone Astoria had been kissing only moments before. She looked soft and rumpled and entirely too inviting.
“Goodnight.” Astoria leaned in.
The kiss started gentle, but Miller's fingers curled into Astoria's blazer and pulled her closer and gentle became something else.
Astoria's hand came up to cup Miller's jaw, angling her head and deepening the kiss until Miller made that small sound in the back of her throat that always threatened to undo Astoria's resolve entirely.
She was so lost in the moment that she didn’t hear the footsteps until they were almost on top of them. The rattle of wheels on the carpet and quiet clink of glass followed soon after.
Astoria pulled back just as a man in the hotel's burgundy uniform rounded the corner, pushing a room service cart. He was maybe ten feet away when he looked up from his path.
He stopped.
For one frozen moment, nobody moved. Astoria was still in the doorway, one hand on Miller's waist, Miller still pressed against her in a robe that left absolutely nothing to the imagination.
There was no way to misread what he was seeing.
No way to explain it away as colleagues or friends or any of the flimsy covers they might have tried.
Then Astoria saw it happen: the flicker of recognition in his eyes. The way his gaze sharpened on her face, placed her, and connected her to whatever image he'd seen in the news or the business pages or the society columns documenting Phoenix Ridge's most public divorce.
Astoria Shepry, billionaire CEO, currently embroiled in a vicious legal battle with her estranged wife, and now spotted kissing a woman in a hotel doorway at eleven o'clock at night.
The moment stretched into something endless. Astoria couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't do anything except watch the calculation happening behind his eyes—what he was seeing, what it meant, what the information might be worth.
Then he dropped his gaze, muttered “excuse me,” and pushed his cart past them down the corridor without looking back.
The spell shattered.
Astoria stepped away from Miller so fast she nearly stumbled. Her heart was hammering against her ribs, her skin suddenly cold and clammy despite the July warmth.
“Astoria—”
“I have to go.” The words came out strangled and wrong. She couldn’t look at Miller’s face, couldn’t stand to see the confusion or concern she’d undoubtedly find there. “I’ll text you.”
She was already down the hallway before Miller could respond, walking too fast, her heels loud against the carpet. She didn’t look back to see if the employee had stopped again, if he was watching, if he’d pulled out his phone to tell someone what he’d seen.
The elevator took forever to arrive. Astoria stabbed the button again, though it was futile, and focused on her breathing—in through the nose, out through the mouth—the same way she’d learned to calm herself during Valerie’s worst episodes, when the world narrowed to survival.
When the elevator doors finally opened, she stepped inside and pressed herself against the back wall. Seventeen floors of silence and her own reflection in the brushed metal doors.
The lobby was quiet. She crossed it without seeing anything, just going through the motions. Outside, the night air hit her like a slap, humid and thick.
She made it to her car before her hands started shaking.
Astoria sat behind the wheel in the dark, gripping the leather steering wheel cover hard enough that her knuckles ached. Her heart was still pounding, had been pounding since the hallway.
He saw us. He saw me kissing her. He knows who I am.
The thoughts came rapid-fire, almost on top of each other.
He knows my face. Everyone knows my face. And Miller— Miller in that robe, Miller pressed against me, Miller making that sound…
She couldn’t breathe. Astoria forced herself to loosen her grip on the wheel. The leather was damp where her palms had pressed against it. She could hear her own pulse in her ears: too fast, too loud.
It might be nothing. Hotel employees saw things all the time. Discretion was part of the job, especially at a place like this—boutique, upscale, the kind of establishment that catered to people who valued privacy. He might not say anything. He might not care.
But…he might.
The thought lodged in her chest like a stubborn splinter.
He might casually mention it to a coworker, post about it online, or worse, see the story to one of those trashy tabloid sites that loved nothing more than a wealthy woman’s downfall.
Or he might recognize Miller. Her face had been in the divorce coverage, too, back when Valerie was publicly bitter about her departure from the case.
If he connected them, if he realized who Miller was…
Astoria thought about Miller’s career, her reputation, everything she’d built and worked for, all destroyed because Astoria couldn’t keep her hands to herself in a goddamn doorway.
She should’ve been more careful. They both should’ve, but somewhere in the last month, she’d let herself get complacent and start to believe that wanting something this much might actually be safe.
She knew better, though. She’d always known better.
Astoria sat in the car in the dark parking lot and stared at nothing, the fear she’d been holding at bay for weeks finally catching up to her.
The drive home passed in a blur of streetlights and stop signs. Astoria couldn’t have said which route she took or which turns she made. Her body moved through the motions while her mind stayed frozen in that hallway, watching the employee’s eyes sharpen with recognition.
Her phone buzzed from the passenger seat. She glanced at the screen, seeing Miller’s name glowing in the dark.
“Are you okay?”
Not did you make it home safe. Not goodnight. Miller had seen the same thing Astoria had. She knew.
Astoria pulled into her driveway and sat there, the engine still running as she stared at those three words.
She could call. She could hear Miller’s voice, let herself be talked down from this ledge, process the fear together in the way Miller always wanted to process things: openly, honestly, like two people who trusted each other.
But if she called, she’d have to say it out loud.
She’d have to put words to the terror clawing at her chest. And once they started talking, really talking, one of them might say what had been hovering at the edges since the beginning: Maybe we should stop.
Maybe this was always going to end badly.
Maybe we should walk away now before it gets worse.
Astoria wasn’t ready for that conversation.
Because she already knew what she would say. That the fear was real and so was the danger. That employee could destroy everything: her reputation, Miller’s career, the fragile thing they’d built over the last month.
Astoria understood the math; she’d built an empire on calculating risk.
But when she thought about walking away—never touching Miller again, never hearing that low laugh again, never feeling known the way Miller knew her—the math stopped mattering.
She’d spent forty-six years protecting herself, building walls and keeping everyone at a distance where they couldn’t hurt her.
And where had it gotten her? A failed marriage, an empty house, and a lifetime of being so guarded that she’d forgotten what it felt like to be seen.
Miller saw her, though. She looked past every defense, every mask, and every sharp edge Astoria used to keep people away. And instead of turning that knowledge into a weapon, the way Valerie had, Miller just stayed. She kept showing up and reaching for her like she were a lifeline.
Astoria wasn’t willing to give that up. Not for fear, not for safety, not even to protect herself from what might be coming.
She picked up her phone, her fingers hesitated over the screen. There was so much she could say. I’m terrified. I don’t know what happens next. I’m not ready to lose you. Words that would crack her open, leave her exposed, and start a conversation that would spiral out of her control.
She inhaled sharply and typed, “I’m okay. Home now. We’ll talk soon.”
She sent it before she could second-guess herself. It was the kind of response that bought her time without pushing Miller away. Her phone buzzed again almost immediately.
“Okay, try to sleep. I’m here if you need me.”
Astoria stared at the message until the screen timed out and went dark.