Chapter 147

“A byproduct,” she repeated, her voice thick. She cleared her throat. “How long does it take for it to go away?”

His hand was still on her face, and he couldn’t bring himself to let go. “Not long.”

“But what if—”

“There are some people in this life who’ve always known exactly what role they had to play,” he said, gruffly. “And how to play it. You’re one of them, Lexi. You’ve never wavered from the path you’re on. As you’d normally be the first to tell me.”

“This feels very far away from that path.”

Tyler wanted to break things. He frowned at her instead. “If you don’t want to marry Victor, don’t. But you and I both know that you should never make decisions that will impact the rest of your life when you’re taking a vacation from that life. Go home, Lexi. Figure out what you want there, not here.”

“What happens if I go back to my life, marinate in it for the appropriate amount of time and still find that it doesn’t fit?”

And he hated the anguish he could hear in her voice. The little crack in it, the darkness in her gaze. “You have a life already. It fits you perfectly. You’re the one who told me you needed to arrange a life around your head. Not your heart. And certainly not what’s between your legs.”

“Sometimes I think what’s between my legs is the most honest part of me.”

“Coming feels like honesty,” he agreed, gritting the words out. “But in the end, you can make yourself come with a vibrator. With your own fingers. And if it’s just wanking in the end, you don’t want to make it into something more.”

“Tyler.” His name was like a sob. “You have to know that I—” But he moved his fingers to cover her mouth, because there was only so much of this he could take, and he’d passed that mark some time ago.

“I want you to imagine explaining this to your father,” he said, his voice stern. And he tried to keep all that fury and hopelessness locked tight inside him. “The honesty of your pussy, for example. Will you sit down in his sodding great hall and tell him that? To explain why you’ve suddenly changed the whole of your life?”

“No,” she whispered. “I certainly will not. And thank you for the… clarification.”

That last word was a blow, aimed straight for the gut, but he made himself stay where he was. Lexi rolled up, then sat there for a moment with her back to him.

Then she got up and walked away. Tyler let her go.

Because it was high time he started practicing for the real thing

____________

Lexi didn't book her ticket home the next day, as Tyler had been certain she would.

Another week rolled by, still glorious in all the same ways, but there was an edge to it now. Something dark in the midst of all that glory. And Tyler found he missed the sheer joy of his fantasy come true, but he told himself this way was better. Because this was the truth. There was an end coming. He knew that as well as he knew his own name. Better, maybe.

But on some nights it was all too easy to forget.

Tonight, Lexi met him at his office. She smiled politely at his secretary, looking entirely too elegant and pulled together to be the same woman who, a few nights back, had met him in this very same office, and come away with rug burn on her knees. She’d laughed that heart-stopping laugh of hers, still there on her hands and knees, and called her marks badges of honor.

Tonight it was cold and rainy. Lexi shivered in the coat she wore as they made their way down the street toward the restaurant Tyler had picked.

“I keep forgetting it’s winter here,” she said.

“Winter has a way of reminding you it’s around,” he replied. “Like it or not.”

And he was trying so hard to remember different things, now. While she told him stories from her work at her charity, he watched her hands. And that ring she’d never removed in all the time she’d been here. Despite the things they’d done. The ring that told the truth about her intentions no matter how confused she imagined she was. It’s only a matter of time, he reminded himself. She’ll be gone before you know it.

Still, when their dinner was finished, he had every intention of taking her home, getting her naked and indulging them both. Letting their bodies say all the things he wouldn’t let them say in words.

But his mobile chimed in his pocket on the street outside the restaurant, and he swore when he saw the message. “I’m going to have to go back to the office.”

“That’s all right,” Lexi said. With another one of those smiles that killed him. “I’ll wait for you.”

And once again, Tyler was torn. Because he had to make an unpleasant call—and possibly deal with a whole host of other calls after it—and the part of him that had been ruined for this woman pretty much at first sight loved the idea of her waiting for him. Sitting on the couch in his office like another page out of some sweet, domestic book he would’ve laughed at, had he ever read such a thing. That she wanted to spend time with him even when it wasn’t all about her made his heart seem to thud a little harder.

But on the other hand, it was one more thing he would have to forget when she was gone. And he was weak, because he took her with him back to the office. And debated making the call he needed to after all, because she was so happy to wave him off and turn her attention to what she told him was a massive library on her mobile. He thought of other women he’d spent time with, and how little they would have understood him cutting a night short. And Tyler really didn’t need more reasons to think that Lexi was perfect.

He already bloody knew.

When he checked in on her later, between disasters, she’d fallen asleep.

She was curled up on his couch, her pretty shoes kicked aside. He pulled her coat over her like a blanket. Then he kissed her on her temple.