Page 52 of Storm Warning

Yet, when Nick looked at her—his emerald gaze steady and searching—she felt… seen. Like maybe he understood the parts of her she kept hidden, the fears and doubts and dreams she never spoke aloud. Like he could see past the carefully constructed facade to the woman beneath, and didn’t find her wanting.

That was the most terrifying part of all.

She curled onto her side and pulled the sheet up to her chin, tucking it under her jaw like armor, her knees drawn up towardher chest. The position screamed defensive, protective, but it didn’t ease the vulnerability coursing through her veins.

Tomorrow, she’d focus on her work. She hadn’t come here to get tangled up in a man’s orbit, no matter how compelling. She’d come here to prove something—to herself, to the voices in her head whispering she wasn’t enough.

Tonight, alone in the dark with only the ceiling fan for company and the moonlight painting silver squares across the floor, she admitted the truth she’d tried to outrun:

She wanted him. She wanted him more than she’d wanted anything in a long time—wanted his hands on her skin, his breath against her neck, his weight pressing her into the mattress until there was no space left between them.

And she was afraid—so afraid—wanting him would only prove she didn’t belong here after all. Reaching for him would be like reaching for the sun: beautiful, impossible, and destined to leave her burned.

Chapter 26

Hollow

Nick leanedagainst the porch railing, the wood still cool beneath his palms despite the warmth creeping in with the dawn. The breeze ruffled his hair with gentle insistence, carrying the faint, briny kiss of the ocean and something else—jasmine, maybe, from the vines climbing the lattice below his balcony.

Kate strolled toward the shoreline, her steps unhurried, almost meditative, every line of her body drawn in graceful relief by the snug yoga clothes clinging to her curves like a lover’s hands.

He should have looked away. Should have turned and focused on the stack of contracts waiting on his desk, with their sterile demands and calculated terms. His eyes tracked her every movement, hungry and helpless, drinking in the sway of her hips, the way the fabric moved like water over her skin.

She paused at the water’s edge. The rising sun painted her in a halo of pale gold, setting her auburn hair ablaze with copper and flame. His breath snagged in his throat, caught on something sharp and wanting. There was something almost otherworldly about her standing there, toes buried in wet sand,like she belonged to this place in a way he never had—rooted, natural, real.

She lifted her arms overhead, folding into a slow stretch that pulled the fabric taut across her hips and highlighted the elegant curve of her spine. Heat licked low in his belly, molten and insistent, an innate reaction he either ignored or indulged, depending on the moment and the woman. With her, it felt different—more dangerous. More visceral. It wasn’t just lust coiling through him, though God knew there was plenty of that. It was something deeper, something that made his chest ache with a longing he couldn’t name.

When she turned partway through a pose, her gaze swept toward the house. For a heart-stopping moment, he thought she might have spotted him lurking like some lovesick fool. He eased back into the shadow of a column, his pulse drumming too fast against his ribs, his skin now too warm.

What would she think if she realized he watched? Probably nothing flattering. She’d see him for what he was—a man who took what he wanted, who couldn’t stop himself from wanting her.

He didn’t know why he cared what she thought.

You’re being ridiculous. She’s just a guest. An interesting woman to spend time with while stuck here.

Even as the thought formed, he recognized it for the lie it was. He’d learned long ago never to lie to himself—it was the one rule he’d never broken, even when the truth cut deep.

Kate Danvers was a different type of woman than he’d ever let himself want. She was… substantial in a way that unnerved him, tilted him off-balance in his own skin. She wrote novels—whole worlds conjured from her mind, populated with people who cared more deeply than anyone he’d known in real life. She came from an ordinary family, the kind who sat around kitchen tables cluttered with mismatched mugs and believed in things like loyalty and forever, words that tasted foreign on his tongue.

He’d grown up in marble halls where footsteps echoed like accusations, where love was currency to be spent and nothing lasted unless it served someone’s ambition. His name, his money, the careful persona he wore like a custom-tailored suit—perfectly fitted, perfectly false—it had always been enough to charm sophisticated women who didn’t ask for more than a pleasant evening, champagne in crystal glasses, and a romp in silk sheets before a polite goodbye that left no marks.

Kate wasn’t that. She radiated something he couldn’t define, something that made his hands itch to reach for her—an openness, an authenticity that shone like sunlight after too long in the dark. She glowed like a promise of permanence.

God help him, some hidden, stubborn part of him—the part which still remembered being a boy wanting his father’s approval, his mother’s warmth—wanted that. Wantedher.

He wanted someone to see past the headlines, past the carefully curated image his publicist fed to the press. Past the legacy he’d never asked for but carried like chains. Past the polished veneer to the man underneath—the man who woke up some mornings staring at the ceiling, heart pounding with the certainty he was an imposter in his own skin, playing a role written by another. That’s why he’d told her too much last night, letting words he'd never spoken aloud before spill out over whiskey and a fire.

Permanence was the one thing he’d taught himself never to want, had carved the lesson into his bones with each disappointment, each betrayal. Because in the end, no matter how charming the illusion, no matter how sweet the promises whispered in the dark, no one ever stayed. No one ever looked long enough, deep enough to see him—really see him—and choose to stay.

He dragged a hand across his mouth, the scrape of stubble rough against his palm, trying to shake off the raw ache settling in his chest like a stone. What was the point of thinking about her this way? Even if he convinced her to share his bed, even if he tasted every inch of her sun-warmed skin and heard her gasp his name, she’d eventually discover how hollow it all was. How hollowhewas beneath the expensive trappings.

He clenched his jaw until it hurt, willing the longing back into the place where he kept everything he couldn’t afford to feel, boxing his emotions away in the vault where they belonged, where they couldn’t touch him.

With a soft curse bitter on his tongue, he spun away from the rail and stepped inside. The hush of the room swallowed him whole, cool and antiseptic compared to the salt-kissed air outside, the air she breathed right now.

He settled at his desk; the worn leather chair groaned under his weight like an old companion offering sympathy. He closed his eyes, but the image of her—barefoot in the sand, hair wafting in the wind, body bending and flowing like poetry—waited behind his eyelids, vivid and inescapable.

The wanting came then, fierce and unwelcome, crashing over him like the waves breaking against the shore. Wanting her warmth seeping into the cold places inside him. Wanting her quiet conviction that the world still held beauty worth believing in. Wanting the way she made everything else fade into the background—the emails, the obligations, the endless performance of being Nicholas Haverton Ivory.