FAZER LOGINRhysand didn’t move back. His hand was still under my shirt, his palm on my waist, completely still now like it had just realized it was sitting at a crime scene.His eyes dropped to my mouth, then lifted again, and the corner of his mouth twitched. He let out a quiet laugh, his breath brushing my lips.“You can’t use that to make me stop.”I stiffened. “Excuse me?”“That’s not a stop word,” he said, his voice still low, still too close, still obnoxious with a face that should’ve been banned under international law. “That’s a name.”“Your fiancée’s name, in case you need a flashcard.”“I know who she is.”“Good. Basic memory function is intact. Let’s celebrate with distance.”I pressed both hands against his chest.He didn’t move. The man’s chest was basically a Swiss bank vault with a heartbeat. I pushed again, harder, and he was still right in front of me, not holding me there roughly, not forcing me to stay close, just refusing to give me the visual satisfaction of stumbling backwa
I forgot the order of the alphabet.Worse, I almost didn’t care.Rhysand’s hand on my waist felt hot, his palm against my skin in a way that was far too simple for something capable of ruining several lives at once. There was no grand gesture. No cheap drama involving rain, music, or thunder suddenly deciding it needed to participate.Just his hand under my shirt, his skin against mine, his breath at my neck, and my body very rudely deciding that morality was a topic for people who got enough sleep.Rhysand kissed the spot beneath my jaw, where my skin had apparently been storing every bad decision I’d made since Hawaii, and my body moved toward him like an idiot who had just spotted the exit and still chose the emergency staircase straight to hell.“Rhys,” I said, my voice coming out too low.He stopped for half a second. Only half. Enough to give me room. Enough to prove that this man, even with his heat pressed against my body and his breathing unsteady, still had that deeply irrit
The air in my lungs stopped cooperating.I looked out at the ocean.There was no part of what Rhysand had just said that I could hit without hitting myself too. And he didn’t take it back. Didn’t soften it. Didn’t reshape it into something easier for me to swallow.Damn this man.“Don’t use that as a way in,” I said.“I’m not.”“It sounds like you are.”“Because you hear everything like it’s a door that needs locking.”I turned to him sharply. “And you hear everything like it’s a house you can buy.”He took that without flinching, still looking at me with something far more honest than I had asked for.“I looked for you all the way to Bali,” he said.I gave a small, humorless laugh. “Are we changing the subject?”“No.”“You’re mixing two different things.”“I’m not.” He moved half a step closer. “I’m telling you I know what it feels like to look for someone and not find them. And now someone else knows how to find your house.”“Don’t.”“I’m also telling you I’ve been stopping myself f
Rhysand carried Aiden upstairs with a calm that felt almost ridiculous on a man his size.I walked beside him with one hand resting on the stair railing, not because I needed something to hold on to.Obviously not.I was simply a woman appreciating the architecture of her own home at midnight, after a stalker package, a security perimeter, and my former one-night disaster carrying my son like that little body had always belonged somewhere in his arms.Aiden was already half asleep again by the time we reached the hallway.His head rested against Rhysand’s shoulder, his car plushie wedged between their chests. His dinosaur pajamas were rumpled. Black bangs had fallen into his eyes, and his little mouth hung slightly open as he mumbled something that might have been “water” or “tractor” or a brand-new legal theory regarding Elma’s snoring.Rhysand didn’t ask.He just adjusted Aiden slightly so his head wouldn’t droop too far, then stepped into the bedroom after I pushed the door open wi
I turned back toward the TV, which suddenly became extremely helpful because a man on-screen was currently losing an arm and still had more emotional stability than I did.“Asshole,” I said.“Been that way for a while.”“You should find another doctor.”“I like doctors who don’t cure me.”“That’s the kind of thing that gets a podcast named after you.”“You’d listen.”“I’d host.”His mouth tipped slightly. “Even better.”Damn it.And then footsteps sounded from upstairs.Rhysand’s head turned toward the staircase immediately. Every trace of teasing disappeared from his face so quickly it felt like the room had switched modes.From the man sitting beside me to the man calculating distance.I set my lasagna bowl on the table. “Aiden?”My son appeared at the top of the stairs with his hair sticking up like a premium bird’s nest. His dinosaur pajamas had slipped crookedly off one shoulder. Black bangs covered half his forehead. In his arms was a car-shaped plushie, an absurd thing Saba had
My house, which after eleven usually contained nothing but the hum of the refrigerator, Aiden’s breathing through the baby monitor, and Elma half-asleep complaining if I was still working, was now filled with the low voices of grown men discussing perimeters, shifts, thermal sweeps, and blind spots like my home had recently registered itself as a small embassy.I made coffee.Of course I made coffee.There were things sane women did when their house was surrounded by security and an old stalker decided to get nostalgic with red lipstick. Some people cried. Some called their families.I ground coffee beans, pulled out ceramic mugs, and asked Rivas whether his men drank their coffee black or possessed human weaknesses like oat milk.Rivas looked at me.“I’m genuinely asking,” I said.“Black coffee, Señorita.”“See? Everyone in this house has their own trauma.”I made one tray of coffee for Rivas and his team, another for the two Bernadi men standing outside the back door like expensive
Morning arrived far too politely for something that should have come in carrying a fire extinguisher.I woke before the sun was fully up, with pale light slipping through the gap in Rhysand’s suite curtains and falling over my skin like an accusation.For a few seconds, I didn’t move.There were ge
He picked up his whiskey and took a small sip. It’s too easy. Too controlled. I wanted to disturb him. I wanted to make him lose his flat fucking face. I wanted something tonight to be messy, unmanaged, not wrapped in family and money and shame.“I’m not a good man, Maya,” he said quietly.“I know.
Late night, I’m at a beachside club with a glass of tequila in front of my face and a bartender looking at me like I’m an expensive potted plant that had suddenly started smoking.His name was probably Kai. Or Koa. Or something very Hawaiian and very undeserving of being dragged into the Bernadi fa
After spending the entire day making sure my wedding did not turn into a disaster with expensive flowers, I finally collapsed onto the bed in my suite, one foot still in a heel and the other already surrendered to humanity.Tomorrow, I’m going to become Mrs. Bernadi.That should have made me blush,







