Chapter 21: The Morning After

Should she wake him and tell him about the message. Or delete it and pretend she never saw it?

Her hand moved toward the phone, trembling.

Before she could reach it, Caelum stirred again, his arm tighter around her waist as he pulled her closer. He made a soft sound, half asleep and completely vulnerable.

“Arwen,” he murmured, his voice rough with sleep. “Please stay.”

Even in his dreams, he still wanted her.

The conflict was agonizing in her mind. Part of her wanted to wake him, confess everything, show him the message and let him decide what happened next. But another part—the part that had just spent hours wrapped in his arms learning what it felt like to be wanted—couldn’t bear to watch that peaceful expression turn back into cold suspicion.

The phone screen went dark, the message disappearing into the blackness.

Caelum’s breathing had changed. She felt him wake fully, his body going from relaxed to tensed in seconds.

“You’re awake,” he said quietly.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Why not?” His hand moved up her spine. “Are you uncomfortable? Do you want to go back to your room?”

“No. I was just...” She stopped, trying to find words that weren’t lies. “I was thinking.”

“About what?” He shifted so he could see her face in the dim light filtering through the curtains. “About us?”

“About what changes now.”

His expression was hard to read in the darkness. “Does something have to change?”

“Everything changes, doesn’t it? We can’t just pretend this didn’t happen.”

“I don’t want to pretend it didn’t happen.” His thumb traced her cheekbone. “Do you?”

“No, but I don’t know what this means for us going forward.”

“It means we stop sleeping in separate rooms. It means we stop pretending this marriage is just a business arrangement.” His voice dropped lower. “It means I get to wake up with you by my side every morning instead of wondering if you’re on the other side of that locked door wishing you were anywhere else.”

“I’ve never wished I was anywhere else.”

“Haven’t you?” Something flickered across his face. “You’ve seemed so tense since the wedding. I thought you hated being here.”

“I was scared, there’s a difference.”

“Scared of what?”

Of you hating me when you learned the truth. Of wanting you this much when I had no right to.

“Scared of disappointing you,” she said instead.

He pulled her closer, until there was no space left between them. “You could never disappoint me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do.” He kissed her forehead, gentle and sweet. “Arwen, you’re everything I didn’t know I wanted. Everything I thought I couldn’t have.”

The way he said her name made her heart skip. She tilted her head up and kissed him.

“Regrets?” he asked, and his voice had gone cool. “Is that what this is?”

“God, no.” She kissed him again, harder this time. “I don’t regret anything about tonight.”

“Then what’s wrong? You’re tense, you’re not meeting my eyes, and you look like you’re about to bolt.” He held her chin, forcing her to look at him. “Talk to me. What’s going on in that head of yours?”

“I’m just overwhelmed.” It was true, at least. “Everything feels different now. Like we crossed some line we can’t uncross.”

“We did cross a line.” His thumb brushed her bottom lip. “But I’m not sorry about that. Are you?”

“No.”

“Then stop looking at me like you’re waiting for me to tell you this was a mistake.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“No.” The word was firm and absolute. “This was the first honest thing that’s happened between us since we met.”

She wanted to believe him, wanted to stay in this moment where everything felt simple and real.

But that message was sitting on his phone, waiting to be read.

“Make love to me again,” she said suddenly and desperately. “Please.”

He searched her face. “Arwen...”

“I need to feel close to you. I need to not think for a while.” She pulled him down to her. “Please.”

He kissed her deeply, and she could feel his hesitation warring with desire. “If something’s wrong, if you need to talk...”

“I don’t want to talk please, I want this.” She wrapped her legs around him. “I want you.”

That broke whatever restraint he’d been holding onto. He made love to her with an intensity that left them both shaking, and Arwen tried to lose herself in the sensation of his hands on her skin and his breath against her neck and the way he screamed her name in between.

But even as her body responded to his touch, her mind kept circling back to that phone sitting dark and silent on the nightstand.

Don’t trust her.

Afterward, they lay tangled together again, both breathing hard. Caelum’s hand moved lazily up and down her arm, tracing patterns on her skin.

“Stay with me tonight,” he said quietly. “Don’t go back to your room.”

“I’ll stay.”

“Good.” He kissed her shoulder. “I don’t want to sleep alone anymore. Not after this.”

“Neither do I.”

“Then it’s settled. We share a bed from now on.” He pulled her closer. “No more locked doors between us.”

She nodded against his chest as she was unable to speak past the lump in her throat.

No more locked doors.

Except she was still hiding the biggest thing of all.

Caelum’s breathing gradually deepened as he drifted back toward sleep. His hold on her relaxed into something comfortable and trusting.

Arwen lay awake, staring at the phone on the nightstand.

She could delete the message since he hadn’t seen it yet. She could make it disappear and he’d never know Isolde had tried to warn him.

But what happened when her sister sent another message? And another? Eventually he’d see one.

Her hand moved toward the phone again.

Before she could reach it, Caelum’s phone lit up with another notification.

Same sender.

UNKNOWN

This time the preview was longer:

She’s not who you think she is. Ask her about the hospital. Ask her why she really agreed to marry you. ~ I.

Arwen’s blood ran cold.

What hospital? What was Isolde talking about?

Caelum stirred again, this time moving toward wakefulness. His eyes opened, focusing on her face in the dim light.

“Still awake?” His voice was rough with sleep.

“Can’t seem to shut my brain off.”

He reached over her, and she realized with horror that he was reaching for his phone.

“Don’t...” she started.

But it was too late. His hand closed around the phone and he pulled it toward him, the screen bright in the darkness.

She watched his eyes move across the notifications, watched his expression change from sleepy contentment to something harder.

“Caelum...”

“Who’s I?” His voice was perfectly calm and cold. “And what hospital?“​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​