Chapter 16
Sixteen
Sloane
There are two toothbrushes in the bathroom now.
Mine is the pink one jammed into the cup beside his black one, bristles touching at the tips like they're sharing secrets while we sleep.
I didn't plan for this. I didn't plan for any of this.
Not the way his coffee mug sits next to mine on the counter every morning, his oversized and black, mine delicate and chipped from being shoved into too many apartment dishwashers.
Not the way his pillow smells like his cologne when I bury my face in it after he leaves for meetings.
Not the way I've started listening for the elevator doors to open in the evening the way other women listen for a car pulling into the driveway.
I loved Massimo Santoro from a distance for eleven years.
The teenage version was clean and uncomplicated.
A girl's heart preserving a moment on a hallway floor, wrapping it in protective tissue paper the way I wrap vintage dresses in my shop.
A love I could control because it never had to survive contact with the real man.
This is different.
This love is messy and specific and alive. It lives in the way he reaches for me in his sleep without waking, his arm pulling me closer with a grunt that vibrates against my spine.
In the way he reads contracts at the kitchen counter while I cook pasta beside him and our elbows bump. In the bathroom, he pretends to hate the plants but waters them every morning before I'm awake because he thinks I don't notice.
I notice everything about this man. I notice the way his jaw tightens when his phone buzzes with a number he doesn't want me to see and the way he relaxes it when he catches me watching.
I notice the shadows under his eyes getting darker each morning and the way he covers them with a smile that works on everyone except the woman sharing his toothbrush cup.
Something is wrong. I can feel it in the gaps between his words. In the calls he takes in his office with the door closed. In the way he holds me at night like I'm going to disappear.
But he hasn't told me anything.
So either he's keeping something from me, or I'm reading shadows that aren't there. Gaslighting myself with worry the way I used to gaslight myself with hope.
I shove the thought to the back of my mind, grab my bag, and head out to meet Onyx.
Four guards this time. Massimo doubled the detail after Savine and Callan, and these new men take their positions around me without a word.
Two in front, two behind. I don't argue.
The fight over my freedom to move through the city ended the morning I found two dead men in a parked car outside my boutique.
That reminds me. I take out my phone and shoot off a quick text to Bree about a new order that is coming in tomorrow.
She’s running the boutique while I stay close to Redthorne.
We text constantly. She sends photos of the new displays, I approve orders from my laptop, and she calls me when a customer wants a personal consultation.
It's not ideal. Midnight Boutique is mine and managing it through a phone screen feels like watching someone else raise my kid.
But right now ideal isn't an option. Right now alive is the priority, and I can swallow my pride long enough to let Bree hold the fort until this is over with Lorenzo. Massimo promises he’s working on getting my father to drop the ridiculous contract he signed with Lorenzo.
All I have to do is be patient.
The restaurant is a small brunch spot in Lincoln Park with exposed brick walls, mismatched chairs, and the warm smell of butter and maple syrup drifting through the dining room.
Onyx is already at a corner table with two mimosas and a basket of bread that tells me she's been here long enough to charm the waitstaff into the good stuff before the rest of the Sunday crowd arrives.
"There's my girl." She stands and hugs me, her arms tight, her chin hooking over my shoulder. She pulls back and holds me at arm's length, her blue eyes sweeping my face with the instinct she can't turn off. "You look different."
"Different how?"
"Softer. Less… I don’t know. Less like you're bracing for a fight. More like the world's actually being decent to you for once." She drops back into her chair and pushes a mimosa toward me. "Soft looks good on you, Sloane."
Softer. I press my lips together and feel the cherry lipstick catch against my teeth.
The armor is still on. It's always on. But she's right that something underneath has shifted.
I don't check exits as compulsively as I did three weeks ago.
I don't flinch when Massimo's hand finds the small of my back in a crowded room.
Trusting his touch has made me less rigid, I guess.
"How's Kon?" I take a sip of the mimosa. Cold, sharp, the orange juice sweet against the champagne.
Onyx's face changes. The sharp edges around her eyes smooth out, her jaw unclenches, and the corners of her mouth lift into a smile that isn't performing for anyone. Her blue eyes go warm in a way I've only seen a handful of times, usually after a glass of wine and a conversation about Kon.
"He brought me flowers last night from his rooftop garden."
"Roses?"
"Not this time. They were peonies. My favorite.
I told him like two months ago, maybe three that peonies reminded me of my mother's garden before everything went to hell.
" She wraps both hands around her mimosa and stares into the glass.
"He remembered and he brought them to me in a mason jar so they wouldn’t die.
I placed them in the kitchen near the window.
That man does nothing halfway and apparently that includes flowers. "
My chest tightens. The image of Kon, six-four, broad, dark-eyed, capable of clearing a room in seconds, kneeling on a rooftop growing peonies in mason jars for the woman he loves, is enough to crack something open inside me.
"Onyx."
"I know." She laughs, but her eyes are bright with tears. "I'm a mess. The man turned me into a mess. But here's what I want to tell you, because I can see it happening to you with Massimo and I wish someone had told me when I was where you are."
She sets her glass down and leans forward, elbows on the table, voice low.
"You don't fall once, Sloane. You fall every day.
The big fall is the easy part. It's dramatic and it sweeps you up and your brain goes offline and your body takes over.
But staying in love is a thousand small falls.
It's the flowers he grows on his roof, in my case.
It's the way he checks on you when he thinks you're sleeping.
It's the stupid things, the daily things that keep your heart twined with his.
Mushy I know, but it just hit me out of nowhere and no one warned me love was like this. "
My eyes burn. I press the cold mimosa glass against my cheek to keep the tears from forming. "When did you get wise?"
"When a Russian man bought me at an auction and then brought me into a life filled with flowers and family. Real family. Ones who love you and respect you." She grins, and the softness recedes behind the familiar sharpness. "But don't tell him I said that. His ego is already the size of the moon."
We order food. Eggs benedict for her. Avocado toast for me because I've become the cliche and I've made peace with it.
The conversation shifts from love to logistics.
She tells me about a piece she's editing for an online publication, a long-form investigation into trafficking networks that she's been working on for months.
I tell her about the boutique shipment, the emerald dresses selling faster than I can restock, Bree's boyfriend drama that has turned my shop into a daytime soap opera.
We don't talk about Lorenzo. We don't talk about the guards who died.
We don't talk about the silk slipper or the marriage contract or the fact that somewhere in this city Lorenzo Ferraro is fighting to find a way to get to me.
We talk about normal things because normal is a luxury I can't afford to take for granted.
After brunch the guards and I walk back to Redthorne with the afternoon sun warming my face.
Chicago looks different when you're falling in love.
The buildings seem taller and the sidewalks seem wider and the light hits the lake in a way that makes me want to stop and stare like a tourist in my own city.
I am being ridiculous and I don't care. I am a woman in love with a man who washes my hair after sex and kisses the places he's marked and holds me like I'm the only thing keeping him breathing, and I will be ridiculous about it for as long as the contract lasts.
The thought lands with a thud. The contract.
The expiration date. Clause twelve: either party may terminate with thirty days' notice.
This has a shelf life. Everything between us has a timer attached to it that neither of us acknowledges because acknowledging it would mean admitting that we're building a life on paper that could dissolve with a signature.
I push through the penthouse door and set my bag on the counter. Massimo won't be back for hours. Another meeting. Another closed door. Another phone call he doesn't explain.
I pour a glass of wine, curl up on the sofa, and let myself feel what I'm feeling without trying to name it or contain it or build a wall around it.
The penthouse is quiet. The late afternoon light pours through the windows in gold sheets that warm the hardwood and turn the throw blanket into a pool of amber.
His cologne lingers in the air from this morning.
The bathroom plants catch the light on the windowsill where he moved them last week to get better sun.
I pull the blanket over my legs, breathing in his scent that clings to the fabric. My body still hums from our last encounter, warm and loose, and a quiet happiness settles into my chest.