His lips turn down slightly. “Is it? Or are we just afraid to find out what might happen if we stop fighting it?”
I stare at him, torn between the logical voice in my head screaming warnings and the part of me that’s been starving for this kind of connection for what seems like all my life. “We can’t take this back...”
“I know.”
I swallow more wine to moisten my mouth. “It could ruin everything. My job, your engagement, and both our reputations.”
His voice is steady, certain. “I know that too.”
I stare at him, unable to comprehend his thoughts. “Then why are you willing to risk it?”
“I’ve finally realized there are worse things than complications.”
I search his face, looking for any sign this is just physical attraction or momentary impulse. All I see is the same longing that’s been eating at me for weeks and the same desperate need that makes me dream about his hands and his mouth and the way he looked at me by the pool.
He presses a kiss to the top of my head. “No regrets?”
I trace lazy patterns over a rose tattoo on his chest with one finger. “None. You?”
“Only that we waited so long.”
We lie in comfortable silence for a while, and I relax completely for the first time in months. This feels right in a way that nothing has for a very long time.
His voice is thoughtful when he speaks again. “Sarah, I want you to know that this doesn’t have to complicate things at work. We can keep this separate and private. No one has to know.”
I stiffen for a moment, not liking how I suddenly feel like his dirty secret. “What about your engagement?” I sound almost emotionless as I ask.
He sighs. “That’s a business arrangement. It has nothing to do with us.”
I prop myself up on one elbow to look at him, needing to see his face and search for sincerity. I need to know how he really feels. “What are you suggesting?”
“We continue this and see where it leads without worrying about other people’s expectations or complicated family politics.”
I consider his words. “You want to have an affair.” My first instinct is to recoil and get dressed, but he feels so good that I stay.
“I want to be with you. However that works and whatever that looks like.” He traces my cheek with one finger. “I know it’s not ideal, but it’s what we have.”
I consider his offer, weighing the risks against the way I feel in his arms. For the first time since leaving New York and escaping Alex, I feel like myself again. Safe, desired, and free to make my own choices. What he offers isn’t ideal, and it’s no fairytale. Is it enough for me? I think about leaving him, and never feeling this way again, and whisper, “Okay.”
He stiffens slightly, like he can’t believe I’m agreeing. “Okay?”
I bite my lip before being fully candid. “I want to be with you too, whatever that means or however complicated it gets.” It prickles my conscience as the voice of reason whispers in my mind, asking how far I’m prepared to go to keep this? Mistress to a married man? The thought repels me, but still, I remain. The engagement is just an arrangement, and things can change. I cling to that rationale as he rolls us over so he’s above me again, and I see satisfaction and something deeper burning in his eyes.
“No regrets,” he says, echoing my earlier words.
I pull him down for another kiss. “No regrets.” I sound confident about it, and I don’t regret this night, but I’m not really sure I can be the other woman even if their arrangement is purely business. His kiss and caresses quickly silence that voice of logicagain, and I surrender to how he makes me feel, physically and emotionally.
8
Yarik
Iwake before dawn with Sarah curled against my side, her hair spread across my chest and her breathing soft and even. The events of last night feel both surreal and inevitable, as if we’d been moving toward this moment since the day she flooded my pool deck.
She stirs when I brush a strand of hair from her face, opening those green eyes that have been haunting my thoughts for weeks. “What time is it?”
“Early. You don’t have to get up yet.”
She stretches like a cat, and her body presses against mine in ways that make my morning erection more insistent. The simple contact sends heat through me, and I have to resist the urge to roll her beneath me and start the day the way we ended last night.
