Chapter 3

I didn't move. "I'll get back to New York on my own."

"The other cars all left last night." Alex glanced at my suitcase. "It's more than a two-hour drive back to the city from here."

I got in.

There was an unsweetened latte in the cup holder.

Whenever we drove back to New York together after an out-of-town trip, he had the driver get one for me. He'd seen me frown at sweetened coffee once. After that, no one ever got my order wrong again.

I stared at the coffee and didn't touch it.

Alex glanced at it. "Stomach bothering you?"

"No."

"Then why aren't you drinking it?"

"I just don't feel like it anymore."

He didn't ask anything else.

Once we hit the highway, neither of us said anything for a long time. The driver and bodyguard sat up front, both pretending they couldn't hear us.

We were almost back in New York when I finally asked, "Alex, in all these years, did you ever think of me as your girlfriend?"

He kept looking out the window. "What kind of girlfriend do you mean?"

I hesitated. "The normal kind. Where people know we're together. Where we meet each other's friends and actually talk about a future. Not just hotel rooms and business trips and pretending we don't exist outside of them."

Alex turned away from the window. "We never agreed to that in the first place."

"So?"

"So I figured we both knew exactly what this was. Something private. Just sex. I'm addicted to your body. That's why I've never wanted anyone else. I only want to fuck you." His voice was low and seductive, the kind of voice that could make poison sound sweet.

A private arrangement.

With one phrase, five years were wiped clean.

"Then why did you always say keeping us secret was for my protection?"

"I was protecting you."

"But protecting me has nothing to do with what we are to each other, does it?"

He didn't deny it.

I turned to look out the window.

All this time, I'd mistaken his secrecy for proof that I mattered to him. In reality, keeping me hidden had simply been easier for him.

Once we were in Manhattan, the car stopped three blocks from Moretti headquarters, like always.

On paper, the building housed the Moretti family's hotel and shipping businesses. The top floor was where the family handled its real business. In five years, he'd never once dropped me at the front door—not even when we'd spent the night together and ridden back in the same car the next morning.

I used to think that was considerate of him.

Today, as I got out, those three blocks felt endless for the first time.

Before I could push the door open, he stopped me. "Nora."

I looked back.

He held out the coffee. "Take this."

"No, thanks."

His brow furrowed slightly.

I shut the car door and walked the rest of the way alone.

When I got to the office, I went to the break room to get some water. A few coworkers were huddled together, talking.

"Did you see what happened this morning? Mr. Moretti's car pulled right up to the front door."

"I did. Ms. Valenti got out of the front passenger seat, and there were two more cars behind it."

"So the engagement is real. She'll have a seat at the table now."

The cup in my hand was already full. Hot water spilled over the rim and onto the back of my hand.

It scalded me, and I jerked my hand back.

Someone nearby turned around. "Nora, are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

I held my hand under cold running water.

They were still talking about what it meant that Claire had gotten out at the front door.

I looked down.

Half an hour earlier, I'd gotten out of that same car.

Three blocks away.