Page 169 of Sinful Like Us

I nod and breathe and say, “I’m absolutely positive about one thing. I don’t need a passion.”

Thatcher Moretti is smiling. “You don’t.” He agrees.

I smile into a flood of tears. “I’ve never needed to have ambition, and it’s taken meso longto reach this place. Years. And you’re the first person I wanted to tell.”

He sways at that realization, then cups my face, brushing away the wet streaks. “What else?”

It bursts my heart.

How well this man knows me.

How heknowswhen I have more to say.

“I don’t need a career to be a smart woman.” I go on. “I don’t need a job to be talented. I am both smart and possess talent, and the love that I give is just as important as the fashion empire my mom built. I amenoughjust as I am.”

It is so freeing, and I soar. He hoists me in his arms, my legs wrapping around him. My hands threaded behind his neck, and our foreheads nearly press together as we stare into each other.

Very deeply, he tells me, “I am in awe of you.”

Tears spill, and our breaths come fuller, timed together. “The feeling is mutual,” I whisper, thinking of his self-restraint with Tony. “You’re a good man.”

“You’re a better woman.”

I choke on emotion, and he cups my cheek and whispers, “Jane.”

Thatcher.

His name is inside a kiss, our lips colliding with slow-burning affection that floats me up another thousand feet high.

We can’t stay hidden in the broom closet for long. To be frank, we could easily be carried away and seal this moment with glorious sex. As we often do, but we’ve accepted house duties. Thatcher takes the third floor, as promised.

He pats my ass and moves past me.

I flush, my lips rising with my heart, and I continue on the second floor, clipboard in hand. Perhaps the year won’t end so sadly after all, and excitement carries me like a gust of wind. I’m dying to share my epiphany with my best friend now.

Like perfect happenstance, his bedroom is the next stop on my checklist. I can’t quell my smile. The door is shut, so I turn the knob and breeze inside.

“Moff—” My feet brake, body frozen in alarm.

Farrow is on top of Moffy, sheets unfortunately bunched at the foot of the bed, and his tattooed body bears down and welds against Maximoff’s back and…bottom, while Moffy sinks into the mattress. I can also unfortunately tell that they’re nearing theendof an intimate moment that I’m not supposed to see, one that I’ve so mortifyingly interrupted.

I’m too distraught and scarred to describewhyI can tell.

Farrow immediately stops moving. He swings his head to me, breathing hard like he’s…well he is having sex, so… “Shit,” he curses.

He is very quick to toss a pillow at Moffy, blocking my cousin’s view of me, and then he whips up the green sheets. Covering themselves.

“I’m so…so sorry,” I squeak out.

Move, Jane.

I still have a massive flaw called the inability to divert from embarrassing situations. My eyes are popped and unable to close.

Please close.

“I thought you locked the door?” Maximoff speaks to Farrow, shifting out from under his fiancé.

“I did,” Farrow says, sounding truly certain.