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“Listen, this was a good talk, but—” “Go.” Kai returned to his drink. “And if anyone other than Isa asks, this conversation never happened.”
It’d been eight days, two hours, and thirty-six minutes since we last spoke.
A third, harder knock. “Open the door, sweetheart. Please.”
“Sloane, I didn’t mean what I said last week,” I said softly. “About you having no emotions. I was frustrated and upset, and I took it out on you.” “I know.” I faltered; I hadn’t expected that. “You do?” “Yes,” Sloane said stiffly. She went a teeny bit pink around her ears. “I should apologize too. I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard right after the fire. That was…that wasn’t what you needed at the time.” “You were just trying to help.”
Why did she sound so fucking sad? The only thing I could think of was… No. A surge of panic seized my limbs,
“Our trial period ends in two days.”
“What happens then?” “Then we end the trial and start dating for real.” I didn’t bother playing coy. “That’s what I want, Luna. Tell me that’s not what you want too.”
I didn’t know a lot of things, but I knew her. I knew she had feelings for me. I’d tasted them in her kiss, heard them in her laughs, felt them in the way she’d pressed her body to mine. They weren’t the hallucinations of a man in love; they were real, and I’d be damned if I let them slip away.
“Don’t make this any harder than it has to be,” I said. “The terms were clear. We date for two months, then decide whether we’re going to work. Well, those two months are over, and I’ve decided we won’t.” “You decided. I remember you saying something about this being a two-way street.” Xavier’s cold stillness fell away and revealed a blaze of emotion in his eyes. “Give me a good reason why we won’t work.” “We’re too different.” “That wasn’t a problem when we were dating. Opposites have long-term relationships all the time, Luna. It’s not a deal-breaker.”
I’d rehearsed my speech a hundred times over the past two days, but it rang as false now as it had the first time. I did have a good reason for why we wouldn’t work, but I couldn’t tell him because I was terrified—of him, of this, of us.
“Forced?” Xavier’s eyes flashed at my reply. “Who’s going to force us, Sloane? Your family, our friends, the world? They can all fuck themselves.” “Stop. This is the smart—” “I don’t give a damn about smart. I give a damn about us and the fact you’re lying to me.”
“Maybe, but there’s a crucial difference between me and Mark.” Xavier stepped toward me, and I instinctively took a step back. His broad shoulders filled the doorway, and though he hadn’t officially entered my apartment, his presence permeated every molecule of air until all I could see, smell, taste was him. His earthy scent grabbed hold of my lungs and squeezed, and the memory of his skin beneath my touch was so vivid that, for a moment, I felt as though I could reach out and trace the echoes of our shared moments in the air. “Let me tell you a secret,” he said quietly.
“You kept asking me why I called you Luna. I didn’t tell you because I was afraid it would send you running for the hills. Even before we kissed, before we were anything other than a publicist and her client, you were a light in my life. A persistent, sometimes scary one, but a light all the same.” Xavier’s throat bobbed with a hard swallow. “Luna is short for mi luna. My moon. Because no matter how dark the nights got, you were always there, shining so brightly that I always found my way through.”
“I don’t know when it happened. One day, you were someone I was stuck with if I wanted to keep my current lifestyle. The next, you were…you.”
“Beautiful, brilliant, and so damn caring beneath that mask you present to the world. You can try to hide it, but it’s too late. I’ve seen the real you, with all its perfect and broken pieces, and I love every single one of them.”
“Stop,” I whispered. He didn’t. “I’ve been falling in love with you day by day for years, and I didn’t even know it,” he said, his voice thick. “Well, now I know it.” “Don’t.”
love you, Sloane. Every fucking inch of you, and I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t feel the same. Tell me you aren’t running because you’re scared of getting hurt again. Tell me you truly believe we can’t work when the past two months have been the best of my life. Even with my father’s death, and Perry, and a dozen things that went wrong, they were still perfect because you were there.”
The lock had barely clicked shut before I sank to the floor, my limbs quaking as I tried to tune out his knocks and pleas.
It’d mirrored the same pain rushing in to fill the emptiness in my chest because he was right. I had lied to him. I cared. More than cared. He made me feel everything when I’d thought I could feel nothing, and that realization led to an undeniable truth: I loved him, so much so that I couldn’t breathe, and I’d pushed him away because I knew love would only end in heartbreak.
“You wanted something of your own; well, this is your chance,” Alex said. “Unless, of course, you lied and only started the club for your inheritance. If that’s the case, I gravely misjudged you, and I do not like being wrong.” His green eyes glinted with warning. “Make a decision by noon on January first.”
Her anguish had mirrored mine, and I hated how much hurt she had to have experienced to be so afraid of love.
That shred of hope was the only thing that kept me going because the thought of losing Sloane… It’s not going to happen. You won’t lose her.
I couldn’t. Not when I’d just found her. Not when losing her meant losing a crucial piece of myself in the process.
The blogger was so furious his voice dropped to near inaudible levels, and I only heard snippets of what he said next. Bitch…check in with your star client…not talking about the one you’re fucking.
Sloane was obviously exhausted, but even with faint purple smudges beneath her eyes and lines of tension bracketing her mouth, she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. It had nothing to do with her looks and everything to do with who she was. Smart, fierce, and so damn mine.
It was so potent I could taste it in the back of my throat, and while I wanted nothing more than to grab her and kiss the hell out of her, I had to be smart about this. I had one last chance, and I wasn’t going to fuck it up.
“That’s the second thing,” I said more quietly. “I’m going ahead with the Vault. You and Alex were both right, and I don’t care if I pass the deadline and don’t get my inheritance. That’s no longer what the club is about. I just needed a kick in the ass to realize it.” A sardonic smile crossed my mouth. “Or two.”
“Final thing.” I took a step closer, my eyes trained on hers. “Our trial period doesn’t end until tomorrow, which means we’re not over yet. Not officially.”
“I already made my decision.” “It doesn’t count when there’s still time to change your mind.” Her mouth quivered for a split second before flattening into a straight line. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
“I’ll make it as hard as I can,” I said fiercely. “I love you, Sloane, and if you think I’m letting you go that easily, you’re mistaken. I’ve spent half my life running from the hard stuff and taking the easy way out because I’d never wanted anything enough to work for it.” I swallowed. “Then I met you, and I finally understood what people meant when they said love is worth fighting for. I know it sounds like a cliché, and if you heard this in a movie, you’d probably write a scathing review about it”—Sloane choked out a laugh—“but I mean it. I’ve learned to fight for what’s important, and
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“I know you’re afraid,” I said. “Hell, I am too. I’ve never been in love, and I’ve never wanted to be in love. I have no idea what people do in these situations, which is probably why I’m here, making an ass of myself.”
“If you truly don’t feel anything for me, then I accept that.” Even if it kills me. “But if you do, even the tiniest bit, then don’t do what I used to do. Don’t run away from what could be because you’re afraid of what might be.”
It was blunt, but Sloane had always responded best to directness. It was one of the many...
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“I won’t lie and say I know what our future looks like. No one does. But I do know that whatever happens, we’ll figure it toget...
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“Tomorrow, top of the Empire State Building. Meet me at midnight.” That was when our trial period officially expired. “If you don’t show…” I swallowed past the glass shards in my throat. “I’ll know what your answer is, and I’ll never mention this again.” Sloane let out another watery-sounding laugh. “Are you Sleepless in Seattle-ing me?” “Gossip Girl, actually. Doris was a big fan,”
“I know you think happily ever afters are unrealistic, Luna, but they don’t have to be. You just have to believe in them enough for yourself.”
I didn’t know what dishes you like best, so I ordered a bit of everything. None with walnuts, though.
The farther I walked, the easier it was to breathe and block out memories of Xavier—the warmth in his eyes, the rawness of his voice, the brief glimpse of his dimples after my Sleepless in Seattle comment.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at that little job of yours?” “My little job happens to be one of the top PR firms in the country.” I gave her a brittle smile. “Not everyone marries up for money. Some of us are smart enough to earn it.”
“I have something else I’d like to discuss.” “I don’t know where you can polish your horns. Perhaps you should google demon services and go from there.” She pursed her mouth. “Honestly, Sloane, this is why you’re better off working than trying to find a proper husband. No respectable man would tolerate such juvenile humor.” “It’s a good thing I don’t like ‘respectable’ men, then. They have a habit of saying one thing and turning around and doing the opposite—sometimes with your sister.”
“She misses Rhea,” I said. “Rhea has been with her since she was born. She’s practically a mother to her, and you sent her away in the middle of the night without a word. Of course she’s upset.”
Yes, Rhea lied by omission, but she did that for Pen. You may be happy to keep your daughter at home and pretend she doesn’t exist because she’s not perfect enough for you, but she’s a child. She needs someone who cares about her, and you just took away the one person in your household who fits the bill.”
Because the Empire State Building is a twenty-minute walk away. Because going home means you’ve made your choice. Because this is the last place you saw him, and you feel closer to him here than anywhere else.
We’d seen each other at our worst, yet we’d fallen in love anyway.
I never thought there’d be a day when she said anything helpful, but sitting there alone, in my dark office, while the man I loved waited for me minutes away, her words struck hard.
If I were honest with myself, I knew we could work. Xavier was the only one who got me, who fit into my life seamlessly yet somehow made it better, and without him, all my days would be like this. Lonely, alone, and aching for something I could’ve had but let slip through my fingers.
The sleek glass lift whisked me up to the eighty-sixth floor. Up, up, up, so fast my ears popped, and then… I was there. Midnight. I spilled onto the outdoor observation deck, my skin drenched in sweat and my heart pounding hard enough to break my ribs. Normally, I’d be self-conscious about the way I looked right now, but that wasn’t the most important thing. The most important thing was finding Xavier.
A sob racked the air. I’d never heard such a thing claw its way out of my throat, and it took me a minute to recognize the sound came from me. Once the first one escaped, the rest followed, and I could no more stop them than a sand wall could stop a tsunami. Sunday night, I’d cried silent tears, but there was nothing silent about these. They were guttural, chest-heaving sobs, the type that echoed across the deck and made the very air tremble with sympathy. They would’ve been humiliating had anyone seen me, but at this point, I didn’t care. I’d fucked up my relationship with the only man I’d
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“Luna.”
Firm hands grasped my arms, turning me around, and there he was. Inky black hair falling carelessly over his forehead, full mouth sculpted with concern, eyes that carved a trail of warmth through my frozen tears as they examined me. He was still holding me. His body heat seeped through my clothes, and another set of shivers rippled down my spine—this time from warmth, not the cold. Perhaps my mind could evoke sounds and images and sensations, but it couldn’t create this: the total, all-encompassing peace that I felt only when I was with him. Not a figment. He was real. I cried harder.
