Chapter 7
MALLORY
The pasta water rolls in the pot, fogging the glass lid.
Lemon zest waits in a bright little pile on the counter.
Parmesan sits grated into a chipped blue bowl I haven't used in three years because the Carmichael kitchens have dishes for everything now.
Porcelain for investor breakfasts. Bone china for family dinners. Crystal bowls for berries no one eats.
Tonight, I use the blue bowl.
The one with the hairline crack near the rim.
The first time I made this meal for Rourke, we ate it from mismatched bowls on the floor of my old apartment because I owned one chair and he was too broad for it.
He sat cross-legged in a thousand-dollar shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, pretending warped hardwood was a perfectly normal dining arrangement.
I check the drawer beside the sink. The small white box is still there, tucked beneath a folded dish towel.
I open it anyway.
Cream cotton booties rest inside, absurdly tiny, with two star buttons catching the kitchen light. They look impossible every time I look at them. Too small for the sentence I plan to say tonight. Too sweet for the terror sitting under my ribs.
I touch one rolled cuff with the pad of my finger, then close the lid before I stand here staring until the pasta overcooks.
My hand settles low on my stomach.
Nothing answers. No flutter. No shift. Only my own pulse under my palm and the quiet, frightening knowledge that my body has become the first home our child will ever know.
The pasta water spits against the lid.
I jerk back to the stove and lower the heat.
“After dinner,” I say aloud. “After dessert. Or before dessert. No. After dinner.”
Maybe before dessert.
Maybe the second he walks in.
No.
I glance at the table. I set it myself. Ordinary white plates from the back of the cabinet. Linen napkins, but the ones I washed at home instead of the pressed Carmichael set with the monogram in the corner. Two short candles.
I adjust the dahlia for the fourth time.
Then I adjust it back.
The elevator chime sounds, and my heart knocks once, hard enough that I grip the chair.
On time.
Not a text. Not an apology. Not Beatrice calling with her clipped voice and a promise that he’s “on his way,” which can mean ten minutes or two hours, depending on how many men need Rourke Carmichael to decide something before they can sleep.
The doors open.
Rourke steps inside in a dark suit, tie loosened, hair imperfect at the front as if he's run his hand through it too many times. He looks tired.
He stops just inside the room.
His gaze moves from the lowered lights to the table, then to the flowers.
Not over them.
At them.
“You did these,” he says.
My hand tightens on the chair back. “Yes.”
He comes closer slowly, as if one wrong step might make the room disappear. He touches the edge of a lisianthus bloom, careful not to bruise it.
“The basil flowers,” he says. “You used to tuck them into market bouquets. You joked once that it was one of your toxic traits.”
For half a second, I forget how to breathe.
“They made everything smell like summer,” he adds.
Something opens in my chest.
A place with dirt under my nails and buckets in the back seat of my car. A place where Rourke once stood at my market stall in a suit entirely wrong for the weather, buying flowers he didn't need because he wanted five more minutes with me.
“You remember that?” I ask.
He looks at me then. Fully. “I remember a lot of things.”
My throat tightens.
I turn toward the stove because the pasta needs stirring and because looking at him is suddenly too much.
“You’re on time,” I say.
“I am.” His shoes move softly across the kitchen. “I’m all yours.”
A small sound comes from the entry table.
His phone, facedown beside the silver tray.
I look at it before I can stop myself.
Rourke sees me look.
He picks up the phone, crosses to the wall panel, and taps the household system awake. “Hold all calls unless Beatrice marks it as emergency.”
The panel answers in its smooth voice. “Call hold enabled.”
He sets the phone into the small drawer beneath the panel and closes it.
No screen. No light.
No Jocelyn King slipping into another night through a locked door.
Rourke turns back to me. “As I said, I’m all yours tonight.”
The pasta slips through my spoon, pale ribbons folding into steam. My eyes burn, and I blame the lemon because the lemon can't defend itself.
He removes his jacket and drapes it over the back of a chair. “Can I help?”
I hand him the tongs. “Toss. Gently.”
He accepts them like I've handed him something sacred instead of stainless steel.
We stand side by side at the stove, close enough for his arm to brush mine. He tosses the pasta while I add lemon, butter, parmesan, basil, and a little pasta water.
Rourke inhales, his eyes closing briefly. “My God. Your old apartment.”
The spoon pauses in my hand.
He looks down at the pot. “You made this the day it rained at the flower market. I came by pretending I happened to be in the neighborhood.”
“You were not in the neighborhood.”
“I was very much not in the neighborhood.”
“You bought three bouquets.”
“I panicked.”
“You tipped me two hundred dollars.”
“Did I?” His mouth curves. “I lost count. Did it work?"
“It worked. Not because of the tip. Because you were adorable when you were befuddled."
“It bought you three very damp bouquets.”
“And dinner on the floor.”
I look away first.
When dinner is ready, he carries the plates to the table while I bring the blue bowl of parmesan.
For the first several bites, I keep waiting.
For the phone in the drawer.
For his attention to pull toward the study.
For Ridgeline to enter the room by name, dragging Jocelyn behind it like a shadow.
Nothing happens.
Rourke eats slowly. He asks about the flowers in the lobby and actually waits while I tell him one of the orchids arrived with bruised petals. He asks which vendor, and when I tell him, he doesn't ask whether it affected the hotel guest experience.
He asks if I was angry.
“I cried,” I say before I can dress it up.
His fork stills.
“It was only one petal,” I add.
“Mal.”
“I know. It was stupid.”
“No.” He sets the fork down. “It wasn’t.”
“I think I was tired,” I say.
“I think you’ve been tired for a long time.”
The candle flame shifts between us.
I should bring out the box. I should put it in his hands right now while he is looking at me like this, while the evening still feels held together by something stronger than my fear.
Not yet.
We clear the table together. It takes longer than it should because Rourke keeps stopping to ask where things go, and I keep discovering, inconveniently, that I like telling him.
When the dishes are stacked, he draws me away from the sink and into the living room.
The windows hold our reflection. My dress is simple, soft blue cotton instead of silk. His shirt is open at the throat, sleeves rolled, face tired and intent.
His hand settles at my waist.
My body remembers this.
The heat through fabric. The careful pressure of his palm. The way he guides without forcing because once, before money and hotels and women with perfect timing, he knew me.
We move slowly.
His chest brushes mine.
“I keep thinking about the scavenger hunt,” he says.
I tilt my head back. “Why?”
“You walked up to me like I was an obstacle you were going to enjoy removing.”
“You were wearing polished shoes in sand.”
“I had a lunch after.”
“Then you had poor judgment before lunch.”
His fingers flex at my waist. “You took one look at me and decided I needed humbling.”
“You did.”
“I still do.”
His other hand rises to my face, fingertips light along my jaw. He doesn't kiss me quickly. He doesn't brush his mouth over mine while reaching for his phone or stepping toward another obligation.
He looks first.
Really looks.
My breath catches.
“Beautiful,” he says.
His mouth touches mine carefully, almost asking.
The first kiss is tender enough to hurt. I answer by lifting onto my toes, my hands closing in the front of his shirt.
He exhales against my mouth.
The second kiss is different. Relief breaks through it. His hand slides from my jaw into my hair, fingers anchoring there, while his other arm pulls me closer. My body fits against his with a familiarity that nearly undoes me.
“Mallory.”
My name.
Not Mal tossed over a shoulder in a corridor. Not Mrs. Carmichael on a place card.
Mallory.
Rourke pulls back just enough to look at me, his thumb moving along my cheek. “Tell me to stop if you need me to.”
I shake my head. “Don’t stop.”
He takes my hand and leads me toward the bedroom.
The box in the drawer becomes a smaller thing behind me. Not forgotten, but set down for one more hour, one more breath, one more selfish reach toward the man I've missed while standing right beside him.
The bedroom is dark except for my lamp.
He turns back to me. “I want to take my time.”
My pulse beats low and heavy. “Then take it.”
The dress falls soft around my feet.
His gaze moves over me with such naked tenderness that I cross my arms before I can stop myself.
Rourke catches my wrists gently. “No.”
“Rourke.”
“No hiding from me.” He brings one wrist to his mouth, then the other. “Not tonight.”
My throat works.
I let my arms fall.
His hands move over me as if reacquainting themselves with a language he should never have stopped speaking. Shoulder. Ribs. Waist. The curve of my hip. The soft place beneath my breast where his thumb pauses until I tremble.
He kisses my throat, my collarbone, the top of one breast, then lower, until my fingers clutch his shoulders and a small sound escapes me.
“I want to hear you when you come, Mallory,” he says, and my breath hitches.
This isn't rushed. No timetables. No bodies meeting in the late hours after the day is done because anything more would have to be scheduled.