Page 67

“‘Round Midnight” filtered through hidden speakers throughout the first level of the house, the nostalgic sounds reminding me of my grandma. Miles Davis and John Coltrane had been staples in our house. And now…

And now she wasn’t here to do her word search while I sat beside her and read a book as the sound system played jazz.Loud enough for us to enjoy and loud enough to drown out any visitors who decided to show up at our door without callingfirst,as she liked to say. My grandmother took her alone time seriously, but she never minded having me in her space. We’d spend hours like that, lost in our hobbies, alone but together and I missed that so much.

Every time I thought about having to go back to being alone when this thing with Sin and Enzo was over, my heart broke a little more. I’d trained myself over the past nine years to be alone and fine with it. But apparently, it only took five weeks of consistent company to undo that.

A painful lump camped out in my throat, and annoying tears stung my eyes as I drained my whole glass of wine in one inelegant gulp.

You will always belong right here with us. Fuck everything else. You’re ours. As long as you want us.

Lorenzo’s words from that night in Charlotte taunted me. I wanted to believe them, but if life had taught me nothing else, it had taught me not to take anything a man said in the throes of passion as gospel.

And since he hadn’t brought it up again in the two weeks since, I found no solace in that declaration, regardless of how good it made me feel in the moment. So, I had less than two months to savor everything about this feeling before it got snatched away.

You agreed to this, Goldyn.

Yea, and past me clearly had no sense of self-preservation. This was more than a fling. I was doing more than sleeping with them. I was in love. With both of them. Fully. Irrevocably. Foolishly in love with two men who were already happily married and had no use for me beyond this summer.

God, some days it felt like I’d hopped right into one of my romance novels. Except I wasn’t sure about this ending in a happily ever after.

I’d just refilled my glass of white wine when I heard a voice behind me that made all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

“There she is, honey. I told you I’d find her.”

Chance Summers.

When I faced him, his smile was brighter than the diamonds lacing his companion’s neck.

“Hi,” I offered, unable to keep the agitated edge out of my voice. Why had he been looking for me? And why did the woman beside him look like she’d just placed something sour on her tongue?

Chance fidgeted with his hands, smiling up at me. Since I had on heels tonight, I had at least two inches on him.

“We’re about to get out of here, but I wanted to congratulate you again on having your offer accepted for the second space. You’re gonna do great things.”

Well, now I felt bad for being annoyed.

“Thanks, Chance. And thanks for your help.” Because the second storefront was owned by a different company, it’d taken longer for my offer to be accepted even though the spaces were side by side. He’d sounded more excited than me when he called to congratulate me a few days ago.

“No problem.” He rocked on his heels, smiling at me like a proud family member, and then seemed to remember we weren’t alone. “Oh, Goldyn, this is my wife, Lilith. Honey, this is Goldyn Ambrose. The one who’s going to open the best bookstore in town.”

Theonlybookstore in town.

But he was right. It would be the best.

Fixing a gracious smile on my face, I extended my hand to the woman he called his wife and laughed when she just looked at it.

I was too tipsy for this shit.

The smile she gave me in return could only be described as acidic and I wished she could read my mind and understand I wasn’t interested in her husband. Not in the slightest. I had enough going on with my love life. Getting involved with a married man wasn’t on my to-do list.

Because you already checked it off.

Sincere and Lorenzo are married, the voice in my head taunted.Happily too.

Ignoring the stinging truth of my thoughts, I grabbed up the half-empty wine bottle and tried to excuse myself, but Chance’s hand on my arm stopped me.

He clearly hadn’t registered how cold his wife was acting—or he simply didn’t care—and now he was staring at me in that way that made my skin prickle with the awareness of too much attention.

“You know, I never got a chance to ask, who are your parents?”