Page 116 of Not In The Contract

She looked up at me again, a soft plea in her eyes. “Could you sit down, please?” she asked, pointing at the stool on the other side of the counter. “I feel a little weird talking to you like this.”

“Sure,” I murmured, taking the seat she’d pointed at.

Satisfied, she dragged in a shuddering breath and kept her eyes trained on the empty mug in her hands. “Will Jamie be joining us this evening?” she asked.

I frowned. “No, I think Jamie’s going out with a friend to a new gig in town,” I answered. “She was excited about it so I doubt she’ll miss it.”

Devon’s face turned cold as stone and my heart dropped through the pit of my stomach and into the center of the Earth itself.

“When I first came here,” Devon said, her voice eerily calm. “I was so nervous because you were this ridiculously rich person I was supposed to live with for two months. A stranger. Looking back, I still can’t believe I let Paula talk me into it.”

“I was the one who offered,” I reminded her gently.

She lifted guarded eyes to mine. “I still can’t believe I allowed that, too.”

The sound of my heartbeat clanged in my ears and I fought to keep the unbidden panic from showing on my face. I placed my hands flat on the cool marble surface of the countertop, palms facing down, anything to ground myself.

Why did this feel like a breakup?

I steeled myself and forced the words from my lips. “Why did you allow it?” I asked, proud that I’d at least kept the wariness from my voice.

A small frown marred her face, a small dip forming between her brows. I’d have thought it cute if the situation were different.

“For almost eight years,” she explained on a long exhale, her shoulders dropping with the admission, “I’ve lived the exact same life, chaos and all. I’d wake up, barely make it to class every day. I’d get coffee with Tam if she was on campus, otherwise I’d just while away time in the library studying or… fretting, I guess?”

“Fretting over what?” I asked quietly.

She glanced down at the mug in her hands again before gazing off into the distance. “If that’s all my life would be,” she huffed. “If I was going to be okay existing outside of the comfortable little bubble I’d built for myself. I’ve been terrified for years about what I’d actuallydoonce I left school. So when you offered to be a research subject, and Paula so lovingly pushed me, I figured that it was the big leap I needed to take. The one I’d been too scared to even consider.”

She took another long breath, and I watched her fingers twitch around the handle of her mug.

“And you took it,” I summarized. “And, from what Paula’s said, you’ve been doing really well.”

She blinked up at me in surprise. “How did you-?”

“Paula sent me your latest report, orfindings, I guess,” I confessed. “Profound. But you were talking about something else and I don’t want to derail you.”

Devon chewed on the inside of her cheek for a second. “And even though the prospect of spending two months with a stranger was the last thing I’d ever consider,” she murmured, “I don’t regret my decision.”

A weight that had settled in the pit of my gut suddenly dissipated, and for the first time since I’d stepped foot inside I breathed easy. “You don’t?”

She slowly shook her head. “I don’t regret anything,” she confirmed, her spine straightening as she shifted slightly in her seat. “I learned from a very young age that regret kills more than just dreams.”

“And is that what you wanted to tell me?”

“I wanted to tell you that I care about you,” she said simply, as easily as if she’d commented on the weather.

All I wanted was the bright smile she wore like jewels. Heavy silence blanketed the air between us, stifling and awkward and yet…

Her expression was no longer hard as stone. And she wasn’t done talking.

“When we first started flirting and bantering, it wasn’t something I thought would be serious.” She sighed. “With your status and well,you, I figured you could have whoever you wanted, whenever you wanted. And it was fun.”

A fond smile spread on her dry lips. “Itwasfun, you know?” she lamented. “Between learning to live in the most rigid schedule in the world and stressing about my dissertation, this thing we had going on was fun. It was more than just a distraction to me but I knew it wouldn’t be anythingreal.”

Ouch.

“But then the fun turned to something else,” she sighed, “and my feelings grew until I found myself hopping out of bed at ass o’ clock every morning, excited because I’d get to have coffee with you before work.”