Chapter 3 #4
Because in the morning I won't be here. And even if I wanted to stay, even if I wanted to curl into this man and let the sunrise find us tangled together in his sheets, I can't. Because he's holding a stranger he chose and not the woman who chose him a long time ago.
Those aren't the same thing, no matter how badly I want them to be.
His breathing evens out and slows. His arm grows heavy around my waist and the tension drains from his body one muscle at a time.
The sharp line of his jaw softens. The furrow between his brows smooths flat.
The man holding me is warm and loose and deeply, completely asleep, and his face in the moonlight looks younger.
Calmer. Free of whatever weight he carries during the day.
I lift my head from his chest. Study his face in the pale light. The dark hair falling across his forehead. The beard covering his jaw. The tiny scar at the corner of his left eyebrow I never noticed at dinner parties. The slight part of his lips as he breathes.
My fingers move before I give them permission.
I trace the tiny scar at his eyebrow with the pad of my thumb, feather-light, barely a graze.
His lashes twitch but he doesn't wake. The rough grain of his beard drags against my fingertip as I follow the line of his jaw down to his chin.
Warm skin. Steady pulse beneath it. I pull my hand back and press my fist against my mouth to keep from doing it again.
I'm memorizing him. Every line, every shadow, every detail I never got to study from across a dinner table. Because this is probably the only time I will ever be this close to his face and I refuse to waste it.
Massimo Santoro. The man who just held my face in both hands and asked me to tell him if anything hurt. The man who called me tesoro while inside me and didn't know he was talking to the girl who used to steal glances at him while he talked with my father about business.
"You really have no idea, do you?" I whisper it so quietly the words barely exist. "You have no idea how long I've wanted you. My prince." I pause. "No. My king."
He doesn't stir.
I need to leave.
The clock on his nightstand glows red. 3:47 AM and sunrise is less than two hours away.
If I'm still in this bed when daylight fills this room, he'll see my face clearly.
The freckles, the jaw, the baby blue eyes he's looked past at a hundred dinner parties.
He'll know I'm Harrison's daughter and everything about tonight will curdle into shame or regret.
"Okay, Whitmore. Time to go." I barely mouth the words.
My chest aches with a deep, physical hurt that makes my ribs feel too tight for my lungs.
I slide out from under his arm. His fingers twitch against the empty sheet, grasping at my warmth.
He murmurs in his sleep and I freeze, bare feet on cold hardwood, holding my breath until he settles.
I pick up my dress from the floor and slip into it. The fabric is wrinkled and smells like his cologne and my skin and the heat of what we just did in that bed. After tonight I'll never be able to wear it again. Scratch that, it will become my night shirt until the day I die.
I look at him one more time. Moonlight paints silver edges across his shoulders, the viper tattoo stark against his skin, his hand resting open on the pillow where my head was. Palm up. Fingers relaxed. Still reaching for me even in sleep.
Lord. That image is going to haunt me for the rest of my natural life.
I could stay. Climb back in. Let the morning come. Tell him the truth.
My throat closes.
I can't. Because the truth will slam a door between us that no contract in the world can reopen. And he will look at me with betrayal instead of tenderness and I will not survive that look on his face. Not from him.
Cinderella doesn't get to stay past midnight. That's how the story goes and by that timing I'm way past the time for my carriage to turn into a rotting pumpkin.
"Goodbye, Massimo," I whisper to the dark room. The only time I'll let myself say his name like this. Like he belongs to me.
I scoop up my heels by the straps and carry them in one hand, barefoot and silent on the cold hardwood as I slip through the penthouse in the dark.
Past the kitchen island with two empty whiskey glasses.
Past the hallway where he kissed me so hard my knees gave out.
Every step carries me further from the warmth of his bed and closer to the cold reality of who I am and who he is and why this can never happen again.
The elevator doors open on a quiet chime. I step inside and reach for the lobby button.
"Tesoro?"
His voice carries down the hallway, rough and half-asleep.
Bands wrap around my chest and tighten. My footing falters.
I slam my palm against the button before I make the bad decision of going back to him.
The doors begin to close and my hand is shaking so hard one of the red heels slips from my fingers and tumbles to the marble floor outside the elevator with a sharp clatter that echoes through the silent foyer.
The doors shut. The elevator drops.
Just like that, I'm gone before sunrise. Just like the fairytale says. So why does my heart ache with a fierceness that makes me want to cry?