Page 21

Stella

“So…I guess we’re roommates now.”

I stare at my bags in the corner of Thomas’s bedroom. I’ve been too afraid to look at him since dinner ended, not sure what I’d find on his face. Annoyance at having to share his space with me? Eagerness at the idea of being in bed together? Hopefully not disgust, but I can’t rule it out.

“I guess we are,” he says, and I finally let my eyes swing up to him.

I don’t find any of the things I was considering. Instead, I see a knowing smile, like we should have expected this to happen all along and he’s not remotely mad about it.

I think that might be the worst of them all. Because this… this I don’t know how to handle.

“How do you think dinner went?” he asks, shutting the door behind us and moving toward the dresser.

We didn’t talk on the way up to his— our —bedroom, lest anyone in the family overhear, so I guess it’s time for the debrief. But other than being bombarded for hours with questions about my life, my businesses, and my marriage, dinner was a breeze.

It’s exhausting, but I’m fantastic at putting on a show. My superpower is being able to talk to anyone, to lean in and make them feel like they’re the only person in the room worth giving my attention to. I can humor and empathize with even the sourest of grapes. In this case, that would be Edith, whose dour attitude, gray shift dress, and tight ponytail made me wonder if she’s ever had fun in her life. But she cracked a smile when I was asked to tell the story of how I built my macaron empire, almost as if she were proud of me for pulling it off.

Calais and Geneva were easy sells too, fashion being our common ground. And Thomas’s mother, Iris, practically held my hand all through dinner and made me more drinks whenever mine got low. Guess I know where Thomas gets it from now.

Andrew and Thomas’s dad were harder to bring over to my side. The latter came around after I offhandedly mentioned my company’s profit margin last year. But Andrew…I don’t know. There was something about him I didn’t care for. Plus, every time he looked at Thomas, I swore resentment thrummed through the air.

And then there was Figgy and the constant fight for my husband’s attention. I might have found her interjections into the conversation and the anecdotes about their long, storied friendship amusing if I didn’t know she was trying to steal my man.

My man. Oh God. That’s not—I shouldn’t be—thinking of Thomas that way; while technically correct, that shouldn’t be allowed to go through my head.

“It went really well,” I answer, forcing the thought away. “Your mother’s in love with me. Even Edith warmed up by the end.”

It might have had something to do with the ten thousand espresso martinis Iris shook up. Those would make anyone friendly. I’ve had just enough that I’m loose and a little lightheaded now, but not enough to be drunk. Considering what happened between Thomas and me the last time we were shit-faced, it’s probably a good thing.

“I did see Edith smiling.” Thomas finishes taking off his cuff links and places them carefully on top of the dresser. “Shocking, considering I didn’t think her face could do that.”

I playfully roll my eyes at him as I move toward my bags. “She’s not that bad. Terrifying, yeah, but definitely a shrewd businesswoman.”

“Which is exactly why she’s on track to take over the family company. Dad’s planning to retire in the next few years, so she’s gearing up for it.”

Impressive, but from what I saw tonight, not unexpected. While Andrew mostly sat back and sulked, Edith wrangled four kids, took at least six business calls, and filled in all the blanks whenever her father faltered for an answer.

“Good for her,” I commend as I kneel down to gather my nighttime skin care products from my bag. “She seems like the perfect person for the job.”

Before I stand, I spare a glance over at Thomas, and I nearly drop the lotions and potions cradled in my arms at the sight that greets me. He’s unbuttoned his white dress shirt down to his stomach, pausing to untuck the rest of the material from his navy slacks before finishing the job—and giving me an unobstructed view of his defined abs and the top of his V-cut hips. And it’s…it’s quite the sight.

We haven’t discussed how rooming together is going to work, let alone sleeping in the same (thankfully giant) bed, but Thomas clearly doesn’t think that undressing in front of each other is off-limits. As I stumble to my feet, he shrugs out of his shirt and hangs it carefully in the wardrobe, leaving me staring at his rippling back muscles this time.

Okay, I have to say it: My husband is hot. Appallingly so, considering our promise that we’d keep our hands off each other in private. It wasn’t so difficult a task when I was fully sober and he was fully clothed, but now that we’re neither of those things, my belly is swirling with desire and I’m very afraid I might break a rule tonight.

Shaking myself out of it, I mumble to Thomas that I’m headed to the bathroom to get ready for bed.

“Oh, I’ll come brush my teeth,” he says, following me into the white-tiled space.

He’s either an oblivious fool or is trying to taunt me with those beautiful muscles on display. But I don’t stop him as we approach the double sinks, with him taking the left and me on the right. He’s seen me hungover and half-dead, so I don’t mind taking my makeup off in front of him, but standing together in the quiet is more than I can take.

“Hey, what were you and Figgy talking about before dinner?” I ask as he searches for his toothbrush in his toiletry bag. “I mean, if you don’t mind me asking. It seemed kind of…heated.”

He heaves a sigh and ceases his searching for a moment, meeting my gaze through the mirror. “Well, I was totally wrong about her believing our marriage is real.”

My blood runs cold for a horrible moment. The whole reason he wanted to stay married was to get her off his back—if that hasn’t worked, what skin does he have left in the game? She’ll keep pushing if she doesn’t see me as a threat. Our entire reason for him to want to be with me has completely gone up in smoke.

But I still need him . Loath as I am to admit it, my reputation is still on the line, and splitting up so soon would only send it spiraling farther down. We haven’t even been together for a full month yet; what will my future look like if he says he wants an annulment and we fuck off to separate corners of the world?

“Do you want to end this?” I blurt.

Thomas blinks at me in horror. “Absolutely not,” he says with a vehemence that has me drawing back.

“Damn, all right, just asking.”

“I’m sorry, I—” He cuts short and reaches out to touch my elbow, driving his apology home with a light squeeze. “Just because Figgy doesn’t believe us now doesn’t mean she won’t finally get the message and move on. I want us to stay together. I want to make this work.”

What strikes me first is that these are the exact words I wanted to hear from étienne once upon a time. The words I thought he would say upon realizing he’d made the worst mistake of his life and came crawling back to me.

I understand this context is completely different, and yet it’s still so affirming to hear—Thomas wants me, at least in this small way. He’s not pushing me aside. He’s not leaving me.

“Okay,” I say, because that’s all I can push past the growing lump in my throat.

It’s another long moment before he drops his hand, but he doesn’t immediately look away, searching my face for something. He must find what he wants when I force myself to smile. Only then does he return to looking for his toothbrush and I start in on step one of my skin care routine.

He’s done before I even reach step two of ten, gently touching my arm again before leaving the bathroom, shutting the door behind him to give me some privacy. I slump a hip against the sink and take a breath to ground myself.

Figgy not believing we’re married for the right reasons isn’t great , but Thomas is right—if we stick this out, she’ll hopefully get fed up and move on. And considering his mother is my newest fan, I can’t imagine she and Thomas’s father will keep pushing Figgy toward him. Everything is going to be fine . No one’s stealing my husband.

I finish the rest of my routine and change into my pajamas—champagne-hued silk shorts and a camisole. Might have been a mistake, though, because the second I step into the bedroom, I shiver as my feet hit the hardwood. I could have sworn it wasn’t this cold when I first walked in, but maybe that was the effect of hiking up two staircases and the liquor warming me up.

I know for certain my sartorial choice is a mistake when Thomas looks over. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, down to only his black boxer briefs now, and if I felt a pull toward him when he was just shirtless, Thomas in nothing but his underwear is…Yeah, it’s going to be a problem. He’s a problem. Why couldn’t I have married someone slightly less attractive who I wouldn’t have such a hard time keeping my hands off of?

When his eyes dip from my face to somewhere lower, I don’t have to guess what he’s staring at. I can feel how hard my nipples are, pointing loud and proud through the thin material. It’s mostly because I’m freezing, but also because—

No. Nope. Not even going to acknowledge it. Not gonna think about it. And I’m certainly not going to give any value to the pressure that’s growing between my thighs.

Refusing to think about any of it, including the way he’s looking at me like I’m a whole damn meal, I march over to the opposite side of the bed and pull back the covers. Again, the pillowcases are silk and they’re not the ones I brought with me. Either everyone in this family knows the merit of sleeping on them, or this is just another thing Thomas has done for me. If it’s the latter, then my ass is definitely in trouble, because acts of service are my weakness, and he keeps throwing them at me like grenades.

Even though I’m curious, I don’t ask. I simply slide under the covers, tie my hair up with my silk scrunchie, and pray it’ll still look good in the morning, because I am not about to let this man see me with a bonnet on. We may be married, but we sure as hell aren’t on that level yet.

The bed is thankfully an oversized king, the kind where you could roll over twice and still not make contact with your bedmate. I barely feel it when Thomas climbs in on his side.

“Well, good night,” I tell him, reaching over to turn off the lamp on my bedside table. “We’ll try again with Figgy tomorrow. Maybe if we stare lovingly into each other’s eyes over breakfast and call each other the most disgusting pet names we can think of she’ll believe us.”

Thomas snorts as he turns off his lamp, plunging the room into darkness. “I’ll start brainstorming. Good night, sugar muffin.”

“Night, baby cakes.”

I force myself to stop smiling and shut my eyes, to turn over onto my side with my back to him. Jet lag is still riding me hard, so falling asleep shouldn’t be difficult. Or at least it wouldn’t be if I didn’t feel like I was slowly being turned into an ice cube. Seriously, did someone turn down the heat in our room specifically?

I spend twenty minutes shivering before I finally flop over onto my back, fed up. I’m about to push back the duvet and search my suitcase for a sweater when Thomas asks, “You all right?”

I squint over in the darkness, guilty that I might have woken him, but I’m not about to lie. “This old-ass house is freezing,” I say through clenched teeth. “Are there more blankets somewhere?”

I can’t completely make out his features, though I can see him shake his head. “Probably not in here. I run hot, so I don’t usually ask the staff to keep any extras in the chest.” And then he says, a little lower, “Come closer. I’ll keep you warm.”

For a terribly weak moment, I consider it. I even inch a little closer before I halt. “ No ,” I snap, mostly for my own benefit. “No cuddling. Rule number five.”

“I thought we only had three rules.”

“I added no flirting as number four.”

He chuckles, a rumble that vibrates straight up my legs to their apex. “We’ve broken that about a million times already. Shall we just make no cuddling a rule and break it too?”

“Oh, don’t be a smart—”

Heated skin meets mine before I can finish the insult. I almost feel bad when my toes brush his calf, but even though he lets out a shocked hiss of air between his teeth at their temperature, he doesn’t pull away. He just hauls me closer, tucking himself around me.

“Crikey, you really are freezing,” he mumbles against my hair. His arm is locked across my waist, hand tucked under my rib cage, just an inch or two below the curve of my breast.

“Please never say crikey again in my presence,” I exhale, but fuck , he does run hot and it’s glorious.

“No promises.”

Despite the position, I relax as the heat of his body seeps into mine, loosening my muscles and easing the goose bumps on my skin. My nipples, the traitors, are still hard as rocks. Unsurprising, considering the press of his body against mine is delicious, and I’m not talking about him being a sentient heating pad.

Staring at Thomas and his marble-statue body is one thing. Feeling it up close and personal is another. He’s all smooth skin and rough palms, hard muscles and soft touches. He even slips his knee between mine, every inch of my back pressing against every inch of his front. The sensation sends me straight back to the night at the strip club, sitting in his lap, his fingers gliding up my thigh and sinking into my wetness. The way he sent me over the edge of pleasure with such little effort. How easily he could do it again—and how I know I’d let him.

“Stop fidgeting.”

The grumbled words against the top of my head have me stilling, not even realizing I was moving. “I wasn’t,” I huff, grateful he can’t see my face and the embarrassment written across it, because okay, yeah, maybe I was moving a little to alleviate the growing ache.

“You were.” His hand moves down from underneath my ribs to grip my hip. It sends a bolt of lightning through me, igniting the fuel that was already coursing down to my center. “You were grinding back against me. Keep it up, and you’re going to start something we can’t finish.”

I inhale sharply. Mild-mannered Thomas has disappeared again and the gruff one is back, the one I only seem to get in private.

Maybe it’s the lingering liquor in my system, or maybe it’s my hormones running wild thanks to having a man pressed up against me like this for the first time in ages, but I murmur, “I mean, maybe we could.”

I don’t quite regret the words when they’re out, even though Thomas tenses for a moment before slowly relaxing again. “You’re the one who made the rules, Stella.”

It’s certainly not an enthusiastic yes or even a we could give it a try , and yet the way he breathes the words against my ear feels like an invitation. The way he tilts his hips up, letting me feel exactly what my movements have inspired, is another gentle nudge in that direction. But he’s still allowing me to make the choice.

“We could amend them,” I propose. My heart races as I slide my hand over his and keep going until I reach his body, then drift across the waistband of his underwear. “I owe you for what you did for me at the strip club…”

He doesn’t stop me as I slip my fingers under the elastic. His muscles go taut as I move lower, almost to his—

“You don’t owe me anything.” The sentence is pained as he gently grasps my wrist. The rejection stings until he confesses, “Besides, if you do that, I might fall in love with you, which is not allowed.”

I laugh at his weak attempt at a joke, turning my cheek into the pillow to stifle it, but it’s no use. “I’m sorry. I’ll keep my hands to myself.”

He returns his arm to my waist. “Yes, I’d say that’s a good idea.” As if he can’t help it, he presses a kiss to the spot just under my ear, and it makes me shiver in delight. “Now go to sleep.”

“I will when your dick stops poking into my ass,” I shoot back, which earns me a swat on said ass. I gasp and lift my head to look at him in shock, trying to hide my amusement. “Did you just spank me?”

“That was nothing more than a love tap. You’ll know when I spank you.”

Forget needing his body heat, I’m suddenly hotter than a raging inferno. “Don’t threaten me with a good time.”

“Go to sleep .”

“Fine, fine.”

I tamp down on my libido and attempt to settle in for the night. But after another five minutes, sleep continues to evade me. Thomas’s breathing hasn’t evened out either.

“I can’t sleep,” I whisper into the darkness.

“It’s all those bloody espresso martinis,” he grumbles, burying his face in my neck for a moment before dragging us both over onto our backs. “She should have made porn stars.”

“Bet you never thought you’d say that about your own mother.” I roll toward him, pressing my luck and throwing my leg over his, mostly because I don’t want to lose my heat source.

“God, truly.” He wraps an arm around my shoulders, thumb sweeping absently back and forth over my skin. “Talk until we get tired? Keep getting to know each other?”

“Oh, I’m feeling very well acquainted with certain parts of you right now.”

He heaves a sigh. “You’re a menace.”

“So I’ve been told.”

He’s quiet for a beat, thinking. “Tell me something no one else knows.”

That’s deeper than anything we’ve touched on so far. We’ve focused on the stuff we might be quizzed on in public but nothing that would help us truly know each other. I think we’ve been avoiding it, lest we like what we find.

I think back to the drive here, about his playlists and the friends who inspired his tastes. But it’s what he asked me to turn off that influences my answer.

“I unironically like Ed Sheeran,” I say. It wouldn’t sound like much of a confession to a lot of people, certainly not something to be embarrassed by, but my friends would never let me live it down. And considering Thomas’s disdain for the guy, this might as well be me divulging my deepest, darkest secret. “He’s been my most played artist for seven years running.”

Thomas groans, squeezing his eyes shut. “Jesus Christ . Take it back.”

“What’s so wrong with Ed Sheeran?” I accuse, pushing up on my elbow to stare down at him. “He’s a nice redheaded man who makes catchy music!”

Thomas presses his palm to my back, keeping me from pulling too far away. “Look, I’ve got nothing against the man himself. And maybe his music’s not so bad, but I just…can’t listen to it.”

I scoff. “Why? Did something traumatic happen to you while one of his songs was playing?”

He grows silent again. Oh shit, did something traumatic happen?

“One time, I was stuck in the Dublin airport after my flight was delayed, and I swear all they played was every Ed Sheeran album on shuffle,” he explains after a long moment, sounding like a man who survived a battle. “I thought I was in hell. You would have loved it.”

I slap his chest. “You made it sound like you witnessed a gruesome murder while ‘Galway Girl’ played in the background.”

“Oh, I forgot to mention that I had the onset of food poisoning too,” he goes on. “I was fighting for my life, trying not to be sick all over the place, and then as I’m rushing to the toilets all I saw were those Kerrygold butter ads. They were everywhere .” He shudders, haunted. “Now every time I hear one of his songs, I think of butter and then immediately want to vomit.”

I really shouldn’t laugh. I do my best to fight it. But the image of him on hands and knees in an airport bathroom with the pop star crooning ominously in the background has me near tears as I bury my head in his shoulder, my body shaking with silent laughter.

Thomas, bless him, pats my back and waits me out until I can breathe normally again. “So if I ever ask you to turn off one of his songs,” he says, “you know why.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” I swipe under my eyes, cheeks aching from smiling. “Wow. Okay. Your turn. Tell me something no one else knows.”

He cuts me a look. “I just did.”

“That doesn’t count, it was an offshoot of mine.”

His lips part to protest again, but he seems to think better of it. Instead, he glances away, staring up at the ceiling for a few long seconds before his gaze lands back on me.

“Certain people already know this, but I feel like you should know too…I’ve never been in a relationship before. This is my first.”

I almost snort and call him out on the lie, but something stops me. Instead, I lift my head and squint at him, searching his expression for any hint that he’s joking. He has a good poker face, and he’s fooled me here and there before, but…he looks completely serious.

“You’re shitting me.”

He shakes his head. “I swear to God.”

“Really?” I press, sitting all the way up and letting his hand fall to my hip. “ Never? Not even when you were younger?”

“I mean, I’ve dated people. But it’s never been anything that had an official title or required monogamy.”

I keep staring at him, waiting for the other shoe to drop, but all he does is stare back at me with a wry half smile. He’s not lying.

“I was not expecting that.” I pause again, the reality of it hitting me. “I can’t believe you jumped straight into having a wife.”

“Definitely skipped a couple of steps. So if I do something wrong, just know it’s from my lack of experience.”

“You’ve been doing an excellent job so far,” I commend with a pat on his shoulder. “Much better than my ex.”

I meant the last bit as a joke, but it tastes bitter on my tongue and comes out the same way. It’s like throwing a wet blanket over our conversation, suffocating our levity, and we’re left with an awful silence as Thomas digests what I’ve said. Fuck. Why did I have to go and ruin a good thing by bringing up my ex? Who in their right mind does that while in bed with someone else?

“I have kind of a weird question for you,” Thomas hedges, distracting me from the spiral. “When we were having breakfast together before the race in Abu Dhabi, you acted like you expected me to be mad at you over the lie about how we met. Why is that?”

I blink, embarrassment making way for confusion. I didn’t expect him to remember that moment. Honestly, I barely remember it, but my gut twists at the reminder. I consider lying or denying it, but with how truthful he’s been with me so far, I owe it to him to do the same. “Because étienne—my ex-fiancé—would have been furious.”

At least, he would have been at first. With him, there was a need for immediate drama, an exclamation of Ah putain , and then a few overly enthusiastic hand gestures before settling and sighing and grudgingly telling me it would all work out. With Thomas, I was expecting the same. That immediate frustration, that guilt trip, all before the reassurance that everything would be okay. But like him skipping straight to having a wife without ever having a girlfriend, Thomas went straight to reassurances.

“I guess I was bracing for that kind of reaction,” I finish.

Thomas frowns and his grip on my hip tightens a fraction. Possessive, almost. “He doesn’t seem like a very nice man.”

“He was,” I correct, but I have to add a caveat the longer I consider it. “When he wanted to be.”

“Tell me more about him?” Thomas pauses, then backtracks, shaking his head. “No, I mean…tell me more about who you were when you were with him.”

He isn’t wrong to ask about étienne, because knowing him is important in understanding the person I became when we were together.

I take a breath. “étienne held all the power in our relationship. It wasn’t always like that, but some men just…They take it away from you so slowly that you barely notice.”

We met when I was freshly twenty-three, struggling under the weight of running my own company and finding my place in the world. He was less than a year older and yet he had his life together in a way that I didn’t. And I loved that. I loved his loud confidence, the guidance he offered me, the way he held my hand through tough moments.

“He ran a tech company that he started as a teenager, backed by his family,” I continue, remembering how impressed I’d been by that, by how similar our stories were, and yet he’d found so much more success than me in the same amount of time. “It was thriving when we met and I was…in awe, I guess. I saw his wins and somehow thought he knew better than me—in business, in life, just overall. And he had a way of reinforcing it with the comments he would make—but it was always subtle. Always phrased in ways that made it seem like he was helping me when he was really trying to put me down.”

I see now that they were delicate ways of taking control, of making me put him on an ever-growing pedestal and relying on him for direction. I’ll admit that I was a little much at the beginning—loud and proud and certain I knew what I was doing, even when I didn’t—so his influence felt like maturity. It didn’t feel like someone dimming my light or molding me into what they wanted. It felt like an expectation I was supposed to meet, especially when it was joined by his praise.

And that was the best part. To have his full, beaming pride. To know I’d done a good job in his eyes, that I’d made him happy. That I was doing things right .

What I didn’t know was that his pride in me meant nothing. That the little digs would add up and the praise was to make me want to do what he liked while pushing everything else aside. None of it actually benefited me. More often than not, he was the one who profited off it. My success made him look better. My blossoming status brought him attention. And the support I gave him yet rarely received in return only made him the shining star in our relationship.

I was essentially…gone. Sucked into his orbit, revolving around him, and spat out years later with no explanation.

“I made myself small so he could feel bigger,” I finally say when I realize I’ve been silent, lost in the memory. “He didn’t like when I stole the spotlight. So I stopped giving it a reason to shine on me.”

Thomas’s hand rubs small circles on my hip, comforting me without interrupting.

“I’m still working on that. And I’m already doing a hell of a lot better. But it’s going to take time.”

He makes a soft sound of acknowledgment, soaking in my confession. It’s a long moment before he asks, “Is there a reason you stayed with étienne for so long?”

I pull away from his touch, taken aback by the question. It’s one I haven’t allowed myself to consider yet, and hearing it posed now—while lacking judgment, just tinged with curiosity—has me bristling.

“Can we talk about something else? These are questions you can ask me once we’ve been together a full month.” Again, I mean it as a lighthearted joke, but it comes out all wrong, leaving Thomas frowning.

“I’m asking because I want to know you,” he explains gently. “I’d like to see the full picture.”

“Do you really need to know me? It’s not like any of this is real,” I snap, then soften when I hear how harsh it sounds. “I don’t want to get into it tonight, okay? Can we try to go to sleep now?”

I expect him to push me to open up and share the things that haunt the back of my mind. And I think I would. I think I’d spill it all, let him take it on, let him share the burden with me, even if I’m not ready to admit some of these things to myself.

But Thomas doesn’t push. He doesn’t ask me another question or grumble about my inability to let him in. He simply grabs the hand resting in my lap and tugs gently until I’m lying next to him once more. It’s entirely too tender, too much for what we’re supposed to be, and yet I don’t stop him when he curls an arm around me to keep me close. It’s a loose embrace. It’s exactly enough.

“It’s only supposed to get colder overnight,” he murmurs. “But I promise to keep you warm.”

I know better than to believe men when they make promises. But tonight, I close my eyes and let myself believe him. Just this once.