Semua Bab Fallon’s Reid: An Arranged Contract: Bab 171 - Bab 180

~Fallon~The days blurred together after that.Work. Meetings. Dinners that felt like dress rehearsals for a life we were both too tired to keep faking.Smiles that didn’t reach my eyes.Conversations that skated the surface, never daring to sink deeper.And Reid — always there, always close — watching me with that careful, quiet intensity that made it impossible to pretend for long.He didn’t push.He didn’t ask.But he saw.And somehow, that was worse.Because every day that passed with him being gentle, with him giving me space, with him offering me quiet things I hadn’t even asked for… it chipped at the walls I was trying so hard to rebuild.It made me ache.It made me want.And I hated how much I craved the very thing I was trying to survive without.I thought I could bury it under work.That if I stayed busy enough, distracted enough, maybe I could forget the way his hands felt when they held me through the night.Maybe I could forget the way he whispered my name like it was som

~Fallon~The kitchen was quiet except for the soft hum of the coffee maker and the muted murmur of the morning news playing low from the built-in speakers.I stood barefoot on the cool marble floor, wrapped in Reid’s shirt, sleeves swallowing my hands, the hem grazing the tops of my thighs.I should’ve felt ridiculous.Instead, I felt… right.I moved on instinct, pulling plates from the cabinets, buttering toast, scrambling eggs with one hand while sipping coffee with the other.Nothing fancy.Just breakfast.But it felt dangerously close to something bigger.The kind of thing you didn’t get to have in a marriage like ours.The kind of thing that made you forget this was supposed to be temporary.I heard him before I saw him — the soft pad of bare feet, the low scrape of his hand through his hair.He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, wearing only a pair of dark sweats, looking at me like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or drag me back to bed.“You trying to replace the

~Fallon~I stayed curled on the couch long after Reid disappeared upstairs, the faint hum of the television flickering across the room, forgotten.The storm outside had moved on, but inside me, something was still brewing.Restless.Heavy.Unseen but impossible to ignore.The tea had gone cold between my hands. I didn’t even notice until my fingers numbed against the porcelain.I set it down on the coffee table carefully — like one wrong move would shatter everything around me.Because that’s what it felt like.Like I was sitting inside a glass house, already spiderwebbed with cracks.One wrong breath.One wrong look.And the whole thing would come down around us.⸻I stood slowly, unsure where I was going until my feet started moving.Through the kitchen, past the formal dining room we almost never used.Everywhere I looked, there were pieces of us.A jacket thrown over the back of a chair.A pair of my sunglasses abandoned on the console table.A half-burned candle from a dinner we

~Fallon~The door slammed behind him.Hard.Like he wanted to shut something out.Or maybe, shut me out.I didn’t flinch.I was past flinching.Too tired.Too angry.Too full of words that had been building like pressure behind my ribs for weeks.Reid stood just inside the foyer, his coat still on, the weight of tension clinging to him like a second skin. His jaw was sharp, his hands still clenched at his sides. He looked like a man ready to fight — but not the kind of fight that ends in understanding.The kind that ends in damage.He looked up.Our eyes locked.And then it snapped - my patience. “You’re late,” I said. Flat. Unbothered. Lethal.He blinked once. His mouth curved into something that wasn’t a smile. “I wasn’t aware I needed a hall pass to come home.”I laughed, dry and mean. “Home. You remember what that is?”He stepped out of his shoes and tossed his keys onto the table with more force than necessary. The sound echoed off the walls. “Don’t start.”“Too late,” I said. “

~Fallon~I didn’t sleep.Not really.Even with Reid there — even with his arm draped low over my waist like it belonged there, like I belonged there — my eyes stayed wide open in the dark.I felt the steady rise and fall of his chest behind me. The warmth of his breath on the back of my neck. The weight of his hand, resting with such reverence it broke my heart.He stayed.He chose to stay.And somehow, that was the scariest part.Because this time, it wasn’t performance. It wasn’t damage control. It wasn’t sex or obligation or routine.It was him, holding me.Just because he wanted to.And that… I didn’t know how to protect myself from that.The sun started bleeding into the room hours later, soft and pale through the curtains. Morning always feels honest — too honest. And for once, I didn’t want honesty. I wanted to pretend the world outside the walls of this bedroom didn’t exist.But time never asks for permission.It just keeps moving.And eventually, I did too.I slipped out from