Page 90 of Fallen Empire

Maybe they’d seep into the corners of my sleep.

Maybe they’d take root in the softest part of my subconscious and bloom into something real. Because if he meant it… if he really saw me that way, maybe I wasn’t lost after all.

Chapter 20

Millie

The morning sun shifted just enough to warm my face, and for a moment, I didn’t move. Didn’t think. Didn’t feel in the way I usually did, where everything was clenched tight and carefully managed.

I was in a blissful trance, like my body was floating in air and I was just… existing.

No boardrooms. No fires to put out. No guilt clawing its way up my spine. Just soft sheets, a steady heartbeat beside mine, and the dull ache of being thoroughly, unapologetically wrecked.

I don’t think I’d ever felt like this.

Not even close.

I turned slightly, stretching out my legs with a slow, satisfied sigh as the soreness bloomed across my thighs and settled low in my belly. Every muscle burned—in that addictive, delicious kind of way that reminded me exactly how we’d spent the night.

We hadn’t made love.

We’d used each other.

Desperately. Hungrily. Like the world might split open if we didn’t.

And for once… that wasn’t a bad thing.

I needed it. God, I’d needed it. The chaos. The control slipping through my fingers. The dam finally breaking. And Ben—Ben—catching every single jagged piece I’d tried so hard to keep buried.

He didn’t ask for explanations. He didn’t demand clarity.

He just held me together with his mouth, his hands, his body—like he’d been waiting for me to fall apart just so he could prove I didn’t have to do it alone.

And now, in the warm, quiet light of morning, I felt… light.

Used. Spent. Rewired.

Like all the sharp, jagged edges inside me had been melted down into something softer. Manageable. Almost beautiful, if I didn’t stare too long. But the high didn’t last. Reality came crashing in like cold water to the face.

Savannah.Shit—Savannah.

I sat up so fast the room tilted. My heart lurched, dragging me back down to reality with it. “Shit, shit, shit,” I hissed, throwing the covers off and stumbling out of bed, completely naked.

Where the hell was my phone?

I bent down, grabbing the crumpled sheets at the foot of the bed, tossing them into the air like maybe it had gotten tangled somewhere inside the cotton carnage of last night. No phone.

“Where is it?” I muttered, half to myself, half to the universe. “Where the actual fuck is it?”

Clothes were everywhere—his, mine, a damn warzone of lace and denim. I dropped to my knees and shoved through the pile like a madwoman, tossing a sock across the room and growling under my breath.

Ben’s voice came from behind me, calm, infuriatingly amused. “Lose something?”

I looked up at him, completely breathless, hair wild, heart in my throat.

“My fucking mind. Where’s my phone?”

Without missing a beat, he disappeared into the hall and reappeared two seconds later, phone in one hand, steaming coffee in the other.