Page 8

FIVE

REIGN

I wake up with a jolt. Instantly, my arm shoots out as I reach for the empty space in the bed beside me. The sheets are cold like always. My head falls back against the pillow, and I groan.

It’s been exactly two weeks since San Diego.

Fourteen days.

Three hundred and thirty-six hours since I fell asleep with Elizabeth in my arms, only to wake up alone with nothing but the lingering scent of her perfume on my pillow.

I should have known this would happen.

Elizabeth was a flight risk from the moment I laid eyes on her.

The way she deflected my questions at the bar, kept her answers vague, wouldn’t even give me her real name.

Hell, I knew she was lying about half the shit she told me, but I didn’t care.

Too caught up in the way she felt in my arms, the sounds she made when I was inside her.

But there was something else. Something real underneath all that evasion. The way she looked at me when she came apart, like I was the only man in the world. The way she curled into me afterward, trusting and soft.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand, stretching muscles tight from another restless night.

Morning light filters through the windows of my cabin, illuminating the bedroom I designed with brutal efficiency.

King-sized bed. Blackout curtains. Nothing unnecessary.

Nothing to distract from its purpose. But now the simplicity feels hollow. Empty. Like something’s missing.

Like she’s missing.

I grab my phone from the nightstand and check for messages that I know won’t be there. As expected, there are no missed calls. No new texts. Nothing from the private investigator I hired last week in a moment of weakness. The fact that I even made that call tells me how fucked I am.

The bathroom tile is cold against my feet as I step into the shower, and I turn the water as hot as it will go.

Steam fills the space, but it does nothing to clear my head.

All I can think about is her. The way she felt beneath me.

The soft sounds she made when I pushed inside her.

The look of surprise on her face when she came for the first time.

My cock hardens instantly at the memory.

I wrap my hand around it and close my eyes as water pounds against my shoulders.

In my mind, it’s her hand, her mouth. I remember how tight she was, how perfectly she fit me.

My grip tightens as I think about the way she looked at me afterward.

Not with regret or shame, but with wonder.

Like I’d shown her something about herself she never knew existed.

Pressure builds at the base of my spine.

“Elizabeth,” I growl, her name escaping as I come hard, my release washing away with the water.

The satisfaction is fleeting, replaced almost immediately by a gnawing emptiness. I finish washing with mechanical movements, shutting off the water with more force than necessary.

The mirror reveals what two weeks of obsession looks like. The dark circles under my eyes, the tension in my jaw. I look like shit and feel worse. I run a hand through my damp hair and push it back from my forehead.

I walk to the bedroom and pull open the dresser drawers.

Instead of the tailored suits I typically wear to meet clients, I grab a worn flannel shirt and a pair of faded jeans.

The fabric feels familiar against my skin as I dress, a reminder of who I was before I built my security business, before I started wearing suits to impress wealthy clients who pay for my expertise.

I button the flannel, leaving the top two undone, and pull on the jeans that have molded to my body over years of wear.

I head to the kitchen, the hardwood floors cool beneath my bare feet.

Light streams through the floor-to-ceiling windows, illuminating dust motes that dance in the golden beams. Outside, pine trees sway gently in the mountain breeze, their deep green a stark contrast to the clear blue Wyoming sky.

The view never fails to center me, even now.

The cabin is exactly what I wanted when I built it five years ago. Remote, defensible, with clear sightlines in all directions. Three thousand square feet of privacy tucked into the Wyoming mountains. No neighbors for miles. Just the way I like it.

This place is everything my penthouse in Cooper Heights isn’t. The city apartment is sleek, modern, impersonal—a place to conduct business and sleep between meetings. This cabin is where I come to breathe, to remember who I am.

The refrigerator yields eggs, peppers, and onions. I crack four eggs into a bowl with enough force to send yolk splattering across the counter.

Fuck.

I grab a towel, wiping up the mess while my thoughts spiral back to her.

Was she in trouble? Running from someone? The fear in her eyes hadn’t been directed at me, but at something else, something that made her lie about her name, made her flee before morning.

I’ve seen enough trauma in my life to recognize the signs. The way she flinched when I asked about her family. The careful way she answered questions, revealing nothing of substance. The resignation in her voice when she talked about moving back home.

The thought sends a surge of possessiveness through me that’s as powerful as it is irrational. She isn’t mine. We spent one night together. But something primal inside me disagrees, insists that she belongs to me in some fundamental way I can’t explain.

I dice the vegetables with practiced precision, the knife moving in a steady rhythm that does nothing to calm the storm in my head.

The skillet heats on the stove as I toss in butter, watching it melt and bubble before adding the vegetables.

They sizzle and pop, filling the kitchen with a scent that turns my stomach.

The eggs follow, folding into a perfect omelet that I plate without enthusiasm.

I sit at the oak table I crafted myself, staring at food I don’t want. One bite confirms what I already know. It tastes like nothing. Everything tastes like nothing lately.

I abandon the plate and move to the coffee maker.

The rich aroma fills the kitchen as dark liquid drips into the carafe.

I pour a cup and step onto the deck, letting the mountain air wash over me.

The valley stretches below, mist still clinging to the trees in the early morning light.

In the distance, the jagged peaks of the Tetons pierce the sky, indifferent to my turmoil.

This view usually brings me peace. Today, it only emphasizes how alone I am.

A sharp knock interrupts my brooding.

Before I can respond, the door swings open, and Marcus strides in with a bottle of amber liquid in one hand and a grin that fades the moment he gets a good look at me.

“What the hell happened to you?” he asks, stopping dead in his tracks. “You look like shit.”

I set my coffee mug down on the counter with a grunt. “Good to see you, too, asshole.”

His eyes never leave my face, taking in the week-old beard I haven’t bothered to trim and the dark circles that have become permanent fixtures under my eyes.

“Seriously, what the fuck happened to you?” He sets the bottle on the counter. It’s a bottle of some fancy rum from Fiji, no doubt a souvenir from his honeymoon with Lainey. “I’ve been gone for two weeks, and you look like you’ve been living under a bridge.”

The concern in his voice grates on my nerves.

I’m not used to being on this side of the conversation. For years, Marcus was the brooding one, the guy who needed pulling back from the edge. Now, he’s happily married, and I’m the one falling apart over a woman. The irony isn’t lost on me.

“Nothing happened,” I lie, standing to pour coffee I don’t want. “Just been busy.”

Marcus snorts and helps himself to a mug from my cabinet.

“Bullshit. I know what ‘busy’ looks like on you. This isn’t it. What’s going on?”

I consider brushing him off again, but what’s the point? Marcus knows me better than anyone. He’ll see through whatever excuse I come up with.

“I met someone in San Diego at your wedding.”

“Must have been some woman to turn you into a caveman in just two weeks.”

“She was. We spent the night together.”

“And?” Marcus prompts when I don’t continue.

“And nothing. She was gone before morning. No number, no address. And she lied about her name.” The anger I’ve been suppressing bubbles to the surface. “Elizabeth. That’s what she called herself.”

“Wait, was she the woman from the bar? The one you couldn’t stop staring at?”

“Yep.”

I shouldn’t be surprised he remembers her, but I am.

“Damn.” He takes a sip of his coffee. “So you had a one-night stand with a woman who gave you a fake name. That’s happened before. Why is this one different?”

The question hangs between us, demanding an answer I’m not sure I have. Why is she different? What makes Elizabeth, or whatever her real name is, the one woman I can’t get out of my head?

“I don’t know.” I run a hand through my hair. “There was just something about her, you know. Something that felt...”

“Right,” Marcus finishes for me, his expression softening with understanding. “Like Lainey felt for me.”

I nod, grateful that he gets it without me having to spell it out.

“I hired someone to find her.”

Marcus’s eyes widen. “Damn, Reign. That’s...”

“Fucked up? Obsessive? Trust me, I know.” I push away from the counter and pace the length of the kitchen. “I can’t explain it. I just need to know she’s okay.”

“And if she is? Then what?”

The question stops me in my tracks.

What then? What do I expect to happen if I find her? That she’ll fall into my arms? That we’ll ride off into the sunset together? I’m forty-four years old, for fuck’s sake. I don’t believe in fairy tales.

But I can’t shake the feeling that there was something real between us. Something worth pursuing.

“I don’t know,” I admit. “I just know I need to see her again.”

Marcus sets his mug down and glances toward the hallway that leads to the east side of the cabin.

“What’s with all the construction stuff in the spare room?” he asks.

I tense, not ready to explain the project I started three days ago in a fit of what can only be described as hopeful insanity.

“It’s nothing,” I say, too quickly.

Marcus raises an eyebrow. Clearly, he’s not buying it. “Nothing? There’s a busted wall and enough lumber in there to build a small house.”

I sigh. “I’m converting the guest room into an art studio.”

“An art studio?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Since when do you paint?”

“I don’t.” I take a deep breath, preparing for the judgment that’s sure to follow. “It’s for her.”

“Who?”

“Elizabeth.”

His eyebrows shoot up. “You’re building an art studio for a woman you spent one night with?”

When he puts it like that, it sounds insane. Maybe it is.

“She went to school to be an artist,” I explain, hearing the desperation in my own voice. “Said she wanted to get back into painting again.”

Marcus gives a low whistle. “Damn, you’ve got it bad.”

“Fucking tell me about it.”

As he walks back to the kitchen, his elbow knocks an envelope from the counter. He bends to retrieve it, glancing at the contents before handing it to me.

“Oh shit, your brother is fighting Reyes this weekend,” Marcus says, examining the tickets more closely.

I grunt in response, turning back to my coffee. “Yeah, he is.”

“You going to go?”

I snatch the tickets from his hand and toss them back on the counter. “No.”

“Why the hell not?” Marcus picks them up again. “These are ringside seats. Do you know how hard these are to get?”

“You know exactly why not,” I say, my jaw clenching.

I turn away, staring out the window at the mountains.

The complicated history between Ben and me isn’t something I talk about, not even with Marcus.

Twenty years of silence doesn’t break easy.

Ben was a kid when I left to join the Marines, still trying to figure out who he was and who he was going to be.

By the time I came back, he was a grown man with his own demons, his own anger at the brother who abandoned him to deal with life alone.

The tickets started arriving last year when Ben moved to Cooper Heights to train at the Worthington Gym. Every fight, like clockwork, an envelope would appear with two ringside seats. No note. No message. Just the tickets. An olive branch I’ve been too stubborn to accept.

“This is a huge fight,” Marcus cuts through my thoughts. “If he wins against Reyes, he moves on to the title fight. Your little brother could be a world champion.”

My little brother. The words twist something in my chest. He’s thirty-three now, hardly little. But in my mind, he’s still that skinny kid begging me not to leave, promising he’d be good if I just stayed.

“I know what’s at stake.” My voice sounds tired even to my own ears.

I pick up the tickets, feeling their weight. Ben keeps sending them. Despite everything, despite the silence and the years between us, he keeps reaching out. And I keep pushing him away.

“When’s the last time you left this cabin?” Marcus asks.

I don’t answer because we both know it’s been two weeks. Two weeks of brooding over a woman whose real name I don’t even know, building an art studio for a ghost, driving myself crazy with what-ifs and maybes.

“Fine,” I say finally, the word dragging out of me. “I’ll go.”

Marcus grins and claps me on the shoulder. “Good. And for fuck’s sake, shave before then. You look like a serial killer.”

I run a hand over my jaw, feeling the thick growth of beard. “Maybe that’s the look I’m going for.”

“Well, it’s working.” He gestures to the bottle of rum. “Now, are we going to open this or what? I didn’t fly it back from Fiji just to look at it.”

“You just want those ringside seats,” I joke, reaching for glasses in the cabinet.

Marcus laughs. “Damn right, I do.”

I grab two glasses, grateful for the distraction. As Marcus pours, I find myself wondering if going to the fight is really about reconnecting with Ben or simply escaping the cabin that now feels haunted by Elizabeth’s absence.

The rum burns pleasantly as it goes down, but it does nothing to fill the emptiness that’s taken up residence in my chest. Nothing will, I suspect, except finding her.

And I will find her. And when I do, I’m going to bring her back where she belongs. Here. Home.

With me.