HOLDEN
I’ve beenawake for over an hour, lying here with Zara curled against my chest. Her breath is soft and steady. But everything else feels different. The power is back on. The sun is out. The high of last night has faded into the quiet of morning.
An hour into scrolling her social media and reality encroaches upon us. I don’t like anything about it.
Zara is easy to fall in love with. That much is obvious from the two million followers across her platforms. From what I can tell, women want to be her, and men want to… the thought makes me sick to my stomach.
I keep scrolling. It’s like a trainwreck I can’t turn away from. A photo of her in a bikini at the beach has five thousand comments. Most of them are men, sure that they are her perfect match. She’s everything to a whole lot of people and I’m over here falling in love like an idiot.
I don’t do complicated. I don’t do fast. And Isure as helldon’t do feelings that sneak up on me and take root like they’ve been here all along. But here I am, memorizing the way her lashes rest against her cheeks. Trying to capture the warm weight of her body against mine. Desperate to ignore the way she fits like she was made to be in my arms.
It’s like she was made forme,and that’s the problem.
No matter how good this feels, howrightI think she is for me, Zara Platt doesn’t belong here. She belongs backstage at stadiums and in glossy places with fast-paced energy and bottomless champagne. Not in a one-room cabin with a man who smells like hay and owns flannel in every shade of regret.
She stirs against me, and I feel her smile before I see it.
“Morning, cowboy,” she murmurs, pressing a kiss to my chest that damn near undoes me.
“Morning.” I clear my throat, trying to center myself. “How’d you sleep?”
She yawns and stretches against me. “Best sleep of my life.”
The way she’s looking at me ruins me. Her lashes flutter. Her smile is open and easy. Zara trusts me… or maybe she just trusts easily. The thought makes my throat go tight because I already know how this ends.
It’s one thing to break my own heart. But I can’t be the one to destroy hers in the process. I know what I have to do. We need to end this now before either one of us falls any deeper. I get out of bed and glance back. I find her sitting up and clutching the blanket to her chest. My heart sinks when I realize I’m about to dim that sparkle in her eyes.
“Where are you heading out to so soon?”
“We should get back up to the main house over by Pa’s. I’m sure your sister and Bowen will be making the rounds trying to find you. I’m surprised they haven’t sent out the search party yet.”
She fumbles with her pile of clothing. “Oh, my phone's dead. Yeah, I guess they probably are looking.” There’s something decidedly careful in her voice that wasn’t there before.
I stare out at the clearing like the answers I need are buried in the mud. But when the magical sensation of her hand on myback sends heat whipping up and down my body, I know it’s time. So I say it.
“Look, Zara... about last night?—”
“One for the books,” she gives me a flirty smile that breaks my heart.
I don’t return the gesture.
Zara tilts her head, studying me. “What are you trying to say, Holden?”
“I’m saying what happened between us...” I drag a hand through my hair. “It was incredible. But we both know this isn’t real life. This? Us? It’s just a moment. We were caught in a storm and caught up in each other.”
I gesture to the room. To the damn firelight and the half-dried boots by the door. “You’ve got a whole world waiting for you. A big one. With deals and deadlines and two million people watching your every move.”
Her face shudders. She pulls the blanket tighter.
“And?” she says flatly.
“And this ranch life? It’s not you. It’s slow and small and quiet. Eventually, you’ll miss the rush. The energy. The attention. You’ll get bored. Not that you asked to stay, I’m getting ahead of myself. But I don’t want you to think I don’t know exactly what this is.” The words taste like trash, but I say them anyway. Force them past the part of me begging to shut up and justask her to stay.
She’s very still now, and the silence speaks volumes. But the problem is I have no idea what the hell it’s trying to say. But if I were a betting man, I’d guess that I somehow just made the situation worse.
“Someone like me,” she repeats slowly, eyes hardening.
Dammit.
