ログイン“I see?” I repeated. “That’s your response?”“What response were you expecting?”“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe something that starts with, ‘Jasmine, there’s a perfectly normal explanation for why my house has a miniature women’s department store hidden inside my bedroom.’”“It’s not hidden.”“The door was closed.”“Closets tend to have doors.”I hated him. “And the robe.”“The robe.”“The ivory robe.”“I know what ivory looks like.”“Well, at least your education paid off.”Sebastian picked up his coffee and leaned lightly against the counter.“Because this is fascinating. Yesterday, you said no woman lives here.” I kept going before he could introduce logic into the conversation.“Correct.”“No Kelsey.”“Correct.”“And then this morning I wake up and find a women’s robe in your bathroom, lingerie in your closet, sweaters in a very specific size, and enough clothes to make me question whether you’re secretly running a socialite relocation program.”He drank his coffee.I stared at him. “Ar
I wanted to hit him with a croissant.Unfortunately, there wasn’t a croissant within reach. Just a fruit bowl, a coffee pot, and one four-year-old staring back and forth between us like she’d just discovered the first scandal of her journalism career.“Mommy, but if it wasn’t mosqui—”“Why is your hair sticky?”The most elegant subject change in the history of diplomacy.Poppy stopped immediately.Sebastian lowered his gaze to the small head in his arms.I set down my mug, stepped closer, and pulled at one long strand of Poppy’s hair stuck to the side of her cheek. My fingertip immediately met something sweet and sticky.I looked at my finger, then at Poppy. “This is syrup.”Poppy’s eyes went wide. “No.”I held up my shiny finger. “Poppy.”“It might be honey.”“Worse.”“I don’t know how it got there.”Sebastian turned slightly toward her. “You poured syrup onto your pancake from a foot above it.”“It was technique.”“You hit the table.”“I’m still learning.”“You hit Bunny.”Poppy imm
I stopped in front of the mirror.It fit perfectly.The shoulders fell exactly where they should. The belt sat at the right point. The hem hit mid-thigh. Modest enough, indecent enough, enough to make me look like a mafia wife, well, maybe like Krystal, who had just taken control of the family resort after three elegant murders.I narrowed my eyes. “Interesting,” I muttered.I walked out of the bathroom, then noticed the walk-in closet door was slightly open.I shouldn’t have gone in.I really shouldn’t have.But I had already ruined my life once because of a computer that hadn’t been logged out. Apparently, I learned nothing. Or maybe I was simply the kind of woman who saw a secret door and immediately opened it while carrying fire and family problems.Sebastian’s walk-in closet, unsurprisingly, had never heard of the concept of enough.The left side was suits.A lot of suits.Black, navy, charcoal, several shades of gray that could only be distinguished by rich people and Daniella.
I don’t know when sleep came.Maybe after my body finally gave up before my brain did. Maybe after Sebastian stopped kissing the back of my shoulder, slow and warm. Maybe after I stopped counting all the reasons this was wrong and started counting the soft breaths against the back of my ear.What I do know is that when I finally went under, I went all the way.No dreams.No Adrian standing on the balcony with hurt in his eyes.No old systems, family trusts, security breaches, or the word “Romano” popping up in my head like a tax notification.Just warm darkness. A comfortable weight around my waist. Sebastian’s bare chest pressed to my back, his breathing slow and deep, his left hand spread over my stomach like he’d forgotten the human body couldn’t be considered private property just because you’d once missed it that much.I should not have felt that comfortable.I really shouldn’t have.But his arms locked the outside world away. His warmth spread from my back into my ribs, settling
I pull him down and kiss him again. That’s the last mistake that still has a chance to be taken back. After that, everything moves too fast and too slow at the same time. Sebastian lifts me without asking. One hand on my waist, the other under my ass, as if my body already knows the route to his arms. My legs automatically wrap around his waist. The kitchen marble vanishes. Dark hallways blur past the corner of my eye like a movie playing too fast. I don’t even remember when his bedroom door opens. I only remember the smell of his soap being stronger here, the scent of warm skin, and the sound of our breaths colliding. The bed meets my back. Soft. Expensive. Cold at first, then warming up fast as his body covers mine. Sebastian doesn’t rush. He props himself up on his elbows, knees pressing into the mattress between my thighs, and his mouth goes back to my neck as if he’s memorizing every inch that used to be his. “I missed you,” he whispers, his husky voice sticking to my skin.
Sebastian breathed softly against my mouth, as if he didn’t fully believe it until I pulled him closer.That should have been a very good moment to stop.Very mature. Very sane. Very I’m a thirty-year-old woman with a child, a career, and legal problems that might require their own dedicated binder.Sadly, my body had never read the memo.Sebastian kissed me again. Still controlled, because of course he was. Sebastian Romano could be burned alive and still look like he’d personally selected the kind of fire. But the pressure of his mouth changed, deeper, hungrier, more like something that had been locked in a dark room for a very long time and had finally found the door handle.My hands tightened around his shirt. The black fabric pulled between my fingers, warm from his body. I felt his stomach tense beneath my palm, and my entire head, which had been crowded with noise for days, suddenly went quiet.There was one small voice left in there. A voice wearing a black blazer, holding a c







