I turned before I could forget why I brought her here in the first place, hurrying into the basement to grab a new shirt before heading back upstairs and into the kitchen.
My hands moved on autopilot as I made hot chocolate the way my mother used to — milk, dark cocoa, a pinch of salt. The scent pulled me into the past. Snowstorms. Wool blankets. Safety. Back when I still believed good and evil were easy to tell apart.
I learned the hard way they weren’t.
Once I finished mixing up the hot chocolate, I carried it back to the living room and stopped short at the scene that greeted me.
Ariana had slid to the floor and sat cross-legged beside Cato, her hand moving gently through his dark fur like she’d known him all her life.
This wasn’t the woman I’d studied. The cold, manipulative socialite. This woman was quiet. Kind. Gentle in ways I didn’t understand.
I was having trouble reconciling the woman I’d spent the past several months observing with the woman scratching Cato’s ears and smothering him with more affection than he’d probably gotten in a while, even from me.
Clearing my throat, I walked toward her. She glanced my way, but her attention remained fixed on the dog.
Myfucking dog.
“You should drink this,” I said, extending the mug toward her. “It’ll help warm you up.”
She eyed it. “What is it?”
“Hot chocolate.”
She released her hold on Cato and stood, taking the mug. Our fingers brushed, just for a second, but the heat that flared inside me from her subtle touch could have lit the entire eastern coastline for years.
“I haven’t had this since I was a kid.” She lowered herself back onto the couch, covering her legs with the blanket.
Thank god.
“Sorry if it’s not up to your standards,Mrs. Kane, but drinking something warm is one of the best things you can do right now. That or some skin-to-skin time.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
It came out rougher than I intended. Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe I needed to treat her coldly so I wouldn’t forget who she was. Who her husband was.
She brought the mug to her lips, blowing on it before taking a small sip. And then she moaned.
Fuck me.
The sound punched me in the gut. My cock responded instantly, and I gritted my teeth so hard my jaw ached.
“Don’t run again,” I barked. “If you do, I’ll know.”
I pointed toward the subtle red glow of one of the many cameras in the house. Her gaze floated toward the foyer, then returned to mine.
“Where are you going?”
“Work,” I said curtly.
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Figure it out. I’m not here to entertain you, Mrs. Kane.”
She tilted her head, the faintest trace of a smirk at the corner of her mouth. “Understood…Mr. Fontaine.”
The way she said it — slow, sultry, mocking — nearly undid me. I wanted to curse my body for reacting this way to her. I was usually in control.
