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“Saar, I envy you. To have such a wonderful cook at your disposal.” Diane continues making noises like I was eating her pussy, not feeding her a simple dish.

“And that’s not even his best asset.” Saar glares at me with that fake smile plastered on her blushing face.

“So when is the wedding?” Diane takes a sip from her wine.

“We’re not in a hurry,” I say.

“The sooner, the better,” Saar says at the same time.

Diane’s eyes dart between me and my fiancée. “Oh, you haven’t set the date yet?”

This has been too long of a night. Fuck. “Diane, I have an early morning tomorrow. I don’t mean to rush you, but we should get the pictures done.”

“Of course.” She beckons the photographer with her eyes, and he drops his fork and picks up his camera.

Saar slides from the stool. “Where do you want us?”

Diane discusses a few ideas with her one-man crew, and then we follow their instructions, moving around the kitchen and playing the happy couple.

We pose for what feels like another two hours, but my watch confirms it’s only been twenty minutes.

Saar seems to have relaxed a bit, leaning into her expertise, but she looks tired, and every time I touch her—at the photographer’s bidding—she tenses.

I hate that I’m noticing it. She can’t wait to get away from me, and yet here I am, making it my responsibility to make her life somehow better. As if she cared. Or extended the same courtesy to me.

“I think we got it all.” Diane claps, and they start packing up. Thank fucking God.

It takes another forty minutes before they are out the door, and I rush to my living room to pour myself a glass of whiskey. Only to stop at the stupid plastic sheet I used to support the remodeling story.

Over my dead body would I have pics of that circus in a magazine.

“Fuck,” I mumble.

I find Saar in the kitchen, tidying up. I retrieve a bottle of vodka from the pantry and pour myself half a tumbler.

“Leave that for the housekeeper,” I growl, ready to retire to my bedroom and finish this hellish day.

“It’s nothing. If we leave it, Livia would have more work. It’s not a big deal to load the dishwasher and soak the pan.”

She moves around my kitchen like she’s done it many times. Elegant and efficient. She’s been living here for a minute and half and seems to know this space better than me.

I watch her with my glass halfway to my lips, kind of intrigued by the idea of sharing the space with someone. By the effortless domesticity of the moment.

The thought shocks me, so asshole that I am, I smirk. “I didn’t expect you to have a housewife in you.”

She sighs and looks at me with resignation. “You know nothing about me.”

The truth of that statement surprises me. And reminds me of the files Mathison sent me earlier.

“Not yet.” I shrug.

She snorts. “Not ever.”

She kicks the dishwasher door up and closes it with her hip. My cock twitches. This is the worst night ever.

She wipes the counter and moves a few things around. I should go to my room, but something keeps me here.

Like I’ve been stuck in a dark tunnel, and Saar van den Linden is the first flicker of light I’ve seen in ages. I know her flame will burn me, turn me to ash, but I’m still drawn to its warmth. Its glow. Its fleeting fragility.