Chapter 7: Water…

Ow.

Every bone in Vivian's body felt like it had been disassembled, shuffled, and put back together by someone who hadn't read the instructions.

She frowned in her sleep, a small, involuntary sound escaping her lips.

In the back seat of the Bentley, Ethan had returned to his documents the moment they pulled away from the hospital. The city slid past the windows in streaks of amber and neon, and the cabin was silent except for the soft turn of pages.

Then barely audible above the hum of the engine he heard it.

A sound. Small. Almost nothing.

Like a kitten, half-asleep, asking for something it couldn't quite name.

His eyes moved sideways before he could stop them.

She was still unconscious, pale against the dark leather seat, her lashes casting faint shadows across the curve of her cheekbones. Even like this unguarded, fever-flushed, completely unaware of him there was something about her face that snagged his attention in a way he couldn't immediately explain.

A deer, he thought, without meaning to. Something that would startle easily if it knew it was being watched.

He became aware, a half-second later, that his hand had lifted from the document.

Had been moving slowly, without his permission toward those trembling lashes.

He pulled it back.

Looked down at the page in his hand.

Focus.

He had an 8 a.m. meeting that had already been pushed back once. His assistant had sent forty pages of briefing material that still needed reviewing before morning. He did not have time to be distracted by

"Water…"

Soft. Barely a breath. Rising at the end like a question.

He didn't move.

"Mm… water…"

The second time was worse. Lower, slightly hoarser, threaded through with an unconscious helplessness that he found to his considerable irritation difficult to ignore.

He turned another page.

He was not going to be derailed by a fever dream.

Beside him, Vivian's cheeks had gone from pale to deeply flushed, the fever climbing fast. Her earlobes burned pink. Her lips were dry and parted, her breathing unsteady. She stirred, trying to push herself upright on arms that had no intention of cooperating, and slid back down against the seat with a soft, defeated sound.

"Mm…"

Ethan set the document down.

He looked at her with the expression of a man who has just lost an argument he didn't remember starting.

Vivian, operating entirely on fever-logic and approximately zero conscious awareness, forced her eyes open. The world was blurry and tilting and deeply unhelpful. Her throat was bone dry. She needed water. There had to be water somewhere.

She turned her head.

And found, very close to her face, a pair of lips.

Her fever-soaked brain processed this information slowly, and arrived at a conclusion that made complete sense under the circumstances.

Jelly.

They looked exactly like the strawberry jelly she kept in the back of her refrigerator. Perfectly shaped. Soft-looking. Cool.

Jelly had water in it. Everyone knew that. It would absolutely fix the problem.

Before the conscious part of her mind currently offline and unavailable could intervene, Vivian leaned forward and pressed her lips firmly against his.

The scent hit him first.

No perfume. Just something clean and faintly sweet like soap and something warmer underneath, entirely natural, entirely her.

Ethan went completely still.

Every muscle in his body locked.

The rational, controlled, ice-blooded part of his brain that had spent years building walls against exactly this kind of contact fired off a very clear instruction:

Remove her. Now.

And then

Nothing.

No revulsion. No instinctive recoil. No familiar wave of cold disgust that had kept every woman at arm's length for as long as he could remember.

Just

Warmth.

A softness so unexpected it short-circuited something deep in his chest, and before he fully understood what he was doing, his hand had found the curve of her waist and

"Mm." Vivian pulled back on her own, tilting her head with a small, frustrated crease between her brows. Her voice was scratchy and completely sincere. "Water… doesn't work…"

She had been deceived by the jelly.

Very disappointing.

Ethan looked at her.

Something moved across his expression there and gone too fast to name. He reached to the side compartment, retrieved a bottle of water, and sat for one long, uncharacteristic moment simply looking at the feverish woman half-sliding off the seat beside him.

Then, with the quiet efficiency of a man acting before he could think better of it, he uncapped the bottle, took a careful mouthful, and curved his arm around her waist, drawing her upright against him.

He leaned in.

Vivian's fingers found his collar in the dark, clutching on instinct, and in her hazy half-consciousness she felt something cool and merciful flowing past her lips, easing the terrible dryness in her throat. She exhaled. Moved closer without thinking. Chased the relief of it.

The friction of her body against his did something catastrophic to his self-control.

Ethan's arm tightened around her.

He forgot, entirely, about the documents.

SCREECH

The Bentley lurched to a sharp halt at the roadside, tires biting the asphalt.

In the front seat, James who had been a professional driver for eleven years and prided himself on having seen everything stared into the rear-view mirror with the expression of a man whose entire understanding of reality had just been restructured.

"I.. I'm sorry, Mr. Hartwell." His voice came out approximately one octave higher than normal. "I.. the light"

"Drive," Ethan said.

His voice was low. Slightly rough at the edges in a way that had nothing to do with irritation.

James faced forward so fast he nearly gave himself whiplash.

"Yes, sir."

He did not look in the mirror again for the remainder of the journey.

The Bentley pulled smoothly back onto the road, cutting through the Manhattan night toward the Harlow Residence the private estate Ethan had built for himself when he'd moved out of the family home at eighteen.

The entire surrounding property had been acquired by Hartwell Group over the years, parceled out and cleared, until all that remained within its gates was the single villa at its center. No neighbors. No visitors without clearance. No exceptions.