Page 108 of Filthy Rich Temptation

A figure steps out…

Dark-blond hair, mussed like it’s been manhandled for days.

Tall, broad frame. White tee. Faded jeans. That easy slouch I’d know in my sleep.

My feet falter. My heart too.

Theo.

He straightens fully, his ravaged green gaze capturing mine and stealing the last of my breath. The ache of everything unsaid barrels through me all at once.

‘Theo?’ I whisper, the name torn straight from my chest.

‘Sadie,’ he breathes, as if it almost breaks him. ‘Please don’t be mad at Axel for telling me where you were. I had to see you. I didn’t want to do this at Taylor’s – not with Lottie there – and this felt like the only chance to?—’

‘You don’t need to explain,’ I cut in, my heart lurching at his guilt when it should be me suffering it. Not him. Never him.

Tears spill faster than I can stop them.

I take a step closer, then another. ‘I was coming to find you.’

His eyes widen into mine. He’s so close now, I can feel the warmth radiating off his body, catch his familiar scent curling through the air. The desperation to lean in, to touch him, to breathe him in fully, is like nothing I’ve ever known.

‘You were?’

‘There’s so much I need to say to you?—’

A horn blares across the street. People bustle past. Mike stands a discreet distance away but hears every word. It all presses in on a moment I don’t want us to share.

I swipe away the tears and ask, ‘Would you take a drive with me?’

He doesn’t hesitate. Just pulls the door open wider…

‘Home, Miss Stone?’ the driver asks as I slip inside, and Mike takes the front seat.

I glance at Theo as he gets in beside me.

‘Please, but would you mind taking the long way?’

‘No problem.’

The privacy glass slides up, sealing us into a quiet, humming stillness.

I clasp my hands in my lap and turn?—

‘Sade,’ he says.

‘Theo,’ I say at the same time.

We smile. The smallest of gestures. The biggest of aches.

‘Please let me go first,’ I say quietly. ‘Because I owe you an apology…’

His eyes rake over my face, searching, trying to understand.

‘I hate that it’s taken me this long to see through the pain to all that I did wrong.’

‘You didn’t?—’