FORTY-EIGHT

FORTY-EIGHT


I made it halfway down the corridor before I heard Wesley’s office door open behind me.

He did not call my name.

For once, he let me walk.

That should have felt like freedom. Instead, each step away from him tightened something inside my chest. My mouth still carried the taste of him. My skin still remembered his hands beneath my robe, the pressure of his body between my legs, and the deliberate way he had stopped whenever I went still.

Page nineteen had destroyed the moment before either of us could pretend it meant more than desire.

By the time I reached the blue room, anger had steadied me again. I locked the door, dropped the file onto the dresser, and stood in front of the mirror.

My hair was tangled. My lips looked swollen. One camisole strap had slipped off my shoulder beneath the robe. I looked like a woman who had nearly surrendered to a man she still did not trust.

There was nothing romantic about that.

I pulled the robe closed and tied it too tightly.

The photographs stayed where I had left them. I could not look at the one from the morning of the crash again, but I could not bring myself to hide it either. It lay facedown near the edge of the dresser, its corners slightly bent from my grip.

I sat on the bed and tried to think.

Wesley had known my name. He had suspected I might be the target. He had men watching me, though not closely enough to stop anything. Somewhere in his records was one missing page that mattered enough for him to refuse me even after everything else had come out.

A source who was still alive.

That was his defense.

Once, I might have accepted the logic. Now every appeal to strategy sounded like another locked door.

I did not sleep.

A little after three in the morning, someone knocked.

Three slow taps.

I stayed where I was.

“Catrina.”

Wesley’s voice came through the door, low and controlled.

I looked at the clock. “Go away.”

“I brought the page.”

My entire body went still.

For several seconds, I did not move. Then I crossed the room and opened the door.

Wesley stood alone in the corridor. He had changed his shirt, but not his expression. The hard control was back in place, though something tired sat beneath it. In one hand, he held a folded sheet inside a transparent evidence sleeve.

I looked at it, then at him.

“Where are your guards?”

“Far enough away.”

“Why?”

“Because what is on this page is not theirs to hear.”

I stepped aside.

He entered, but he did not close the distance between us. He stood near the door while I remained beside the bed, as though we had both agreed the room required borders now.

“Give it to me.”

He crossed the carpet and placed the sleeve in my hand.

The page was labeled nineteen.

The report was dated the morning before the crash.

I read the first paragraph once, then again more slowly.

Source confirms Bernardi has moved forward with a staged collision. Possible target narrowed to spouse or legal representative. Contractor requested vehicle access window and route confirmation. No direct name supplied. Immediate exposure of source not recommended pending verification.

My vision blurred.

I lowered the page and looked at Wesley.

“You knew it might be me.”

“Yes.”

His answer was quiet.

“And you still waited.”

“For six hours.”

I laughed in disbelief. “You say that as though six hours was nothing.”

“It was too long.”

“Why?”

He did not ask what I meant.

“Why did you wait?”

“The source had been inside Marco’s organization for three years. If I exposed him without confirmation, Marco would have known exactly where the information came from. The source had access to accounts, routes, personnel, and names tied to every operation Marco was rebuilding.”

“An entire network.”

“Yes.”

“And I was one possible target.”

His jaw tightened. “Yes.”

I looked down at the page.

The language was cold enough to make me sick. Possible target. Vehicle access window. Route confirmation. Every sentence reduced my life and my child to operational uncertainty.

“What happened after this report?”

“I ordered surveillance doubled around you and the lawyer. We tracked Marco’s contractor to a garage outside the city. My men moved before sunrise to detain him.”

“Did they?”

“No. He was gone.”

“And the men watching me?”

“They followed you from the house. They lost visual contact at the service intersection when another vehicle blocked the lane.”

I remembered the traffic. A delivery truck turning too slowly. The car behind me vanishing when I entered the next road.

“They found you eleven minutes after the crash,” Wesley continued. “The ambulance had already arrived.”

The words hit harder than I expected.

“You were there.”

His expression changed.

“Not immediately.”

“How long?”

“Twenty-three minutes after impact.”

I stared at him.

The image formed before I could stop it. Wesley standing near the wreckage. My car crushed against the barrier. Glass across the road. Blood inside. Emergency lights flashing through the morning.

He had seen it.

“Did you see me?”

“They had already moved you into the ambulance.”

“My baby?”

His eyes dropped.

The answer was there.

I turned away from him.

The room blurred. I pressed my hand to my mouth and breathed through the pain until it became something I could stand inside without falling.

He did not touch me.

That mattered, though I hated that it did.

“When did you learn the baby was gone?” I asked.

“That afternoon.”

“And you still did not come to the hospital.”

“No.”

“Why?”

His silence gave me the answer before he spoke.

“Revealing myself would have exposed the source and started a war before I knew who else was involved.”

I closed my eyes.

There it was again.

Strategy before people. Timing before grief. An empire protected while I woke to emptiness.

“You chose your source.”

“Yes.”

The honesty cut cleanly.

“You chose him over me.”

“At the time, I did not know you.”

“You knew enough to watch me.”

“Yes.”

“You knew enough to want me.”

His breathing changed.

“Yes.”

I turned back to face him. “Then do not hide behind the fact that we had never met.”

“I am not.”

“You always do this. You admit the ugliest part as if saying it plainly makes it less ugly.”

“No.” His voice lowered. “I admit it because you deserve the truth without excuses.”

I held up page nineteen. “You hid this until I threatened to leave.”

“I hid it because the source is still alive.”

“And now?”

“Now I decided that keeping control of the information was costing me more than exposing it.”

The words unsettled me.

“What does that mean?”

“It means Marco already knows enough to use the truth against me. The source is compromised whether I admit it or not. Protecting the page no longer protects him.”

“That is not what I asked.”

Wesley looked at me fully.

“It means I believed you would leave if you saw it.”

I swallowed.

“And you decided to let me?”

His mouth tightened.

“If that is what you choose.”

The room went quiet.

For weeks, Wesley had blocked doors, issued orders, tightened security, decided where I slept, and treated my safety as something he could enforce through sheer will. Even when he gave me choices, they existed inside the limits he had built.

Now he stood several feet away and offered no command.

“You would let me walk out of the estate.”

“I would assign protection.”

“That is not letting me go.”

“I will not leave you exposed to Marco.”

“So even now, there are conditions.”

“There will always be conditions where your life is concerned.”

I almost laughed. “You do not know how to surrender anything.”

His gaze held mine. “I am surrendering the part that matters.”

“What part is that?”

“You.”

The word settled between us.

I stared at him, waiting for the claim that usually followed. The insistence. The certainty that I belonged in his bed or under his roof or beside him where he could watch.

It did not come.

He took one slow breath.

“You may leave this room, this floor, or this estate. You may refuse the marriage in every way that matters privately. I will still protect you. I will not use the contract, the guards, or Marco’s threat to force you back into my bed.”

My pulse began to climb.

“And what do you want?”

He looked away for half a second, as though the answer required more from him than confession had.

Then his eyes returned to mine.

“I want you in my bed.”

The words came quietly, but nothing about them was soft.

“I want you in my house. I want you at my side when men like Marco look at what I have and understand they cannot take it. I want to wake with you beside me and know you stayed because you chose to.”

My throat tightened.

He stepped closer, then stopped outside my reach.

“I want every part of you that you decide to give me. Nothing you do not.”

The page trembled slightly in my hand.

“Do you love me?”

The question escaped before I could decide whether I wanted the answer.

Wesley went still.

“No,” he said.

Pain struck so quickly it embarrassed me.

Then he continued.

“I do not know what this is yet. I know I think about you when I should be thinking about business. I know every threat against you makes me less rational than I can afford to be. I know I wanted you before I had any right to, and I want you more now that you know the worst of me.”

He looked toward the page.

“I also know I have spent most of my life turning feeling into strategy. I will not insult you by naming this before I understand whether I am capable of giving you what the word requires.”

The pain eased into something more dangerous.

Truth.

Not the answer I wanted. Perhaps not even the answer I would have believed if he had given it.

I set page nineteen on the dresser.

“If you lie to me again, this ends.”

His expression tightened. “I understand.”

“No missing pages. No strategic omissions. No deciding that I cannot handle something because the truth inconveniences you.”

“Yes.”

“Say it properly.”

He took another step closer.

“If I lie to you again, you leave.”

“And you do not stop me.”

His eyes darkened, but he answered.

“I do not stop you.”

I stood very still.

My anger had not vanished. Neither had the grief, or the knowledge that he had made a choice that left me unprotected when it mattered most. Forgiveness did not arrive because he handed me a page and admitted fear.

But something had changed.

He had opened the door himself.

He had not asked me to forget what lay behind it.

I crossed the distance between us.

Wesley did not move until I touched his face.

My fingers rested against the faint mark I had left on his cheek. His skin was warm. The muscle in his jaw tightened beneath my palm.

“Does it hurt?”

“No.”

“Liar.”

The corner of his mouth shifted.

I slid my hand behind his neck and kissed him.

This kiss was nothing like the one in his office.

There was no argument to hide behind, no staff outside listening, no anger giving us permission to lose control. I kissed him because I wanted to. Slowly at first, learning the shape of his restraint when I was the one setting the pace.

His hands stayed at his sides.

That choice stirred heat low in my body.

I kissed him again, deeper this time. His mouth opened beneath mine, but he did not touch me.

“You can use your hands,” I whispered.

“Tell me where.”

The question sent a shiver through me.

I took one of his hands and placed it at my waist.

“Here.”

His fingers closed around me.

I guided the other to my hip.

“And here.”

His breath left him slowly.

I kissed the corner of his mouth. “You have imagined this.”

“Yes.”

“How often?”

“Too often.”

I smiled against his skin. “That is not an answer.”

His grip tightened slightly.

“Every night since you moved into my suite.”

The admission heated my face.

“And before that?”

He looked at me.

I understood.

Before the marriage. Before the bargain. Before I knew he existed.

The thought should have unsettled me. Instead it sharpened the pull between us.

I tugged his shirt free from his trousers.

“This is your last chance to stop.”

A quiet, humorless laugh left him.

“I have been stopping for weeks.”

“Then do not.”

His mouth came down on mine.

The control remained, but it changed form. It no longer held him away from me. It directed every touch with devastating precision.

He cupped my jaw and kissed me until my breath became uneven, then moved his mouth along my throat. His other hand slid beneath the hem of my camisole and settled against bare skin.

I arched toward him.

“Wesley.”

“I know.”

“You do not.”

His mouth brushed the sensitive place beneath my ear.

“I know exactly how long I have wanted to hear you say my name like that.”

My knees weakened.

He lifted me without warning, one arm beneath my thighs, the other around my back. I caught his shoulders and wrapped my legs around him.

The room shifted as he carried me to the bed.

He lowered me onto the mattress with a care that did not match the hunger in his face. Then he stood over me, gaze moving slowly from my bare legs to the thin camisole, as though he had spent too long imagining this moment to rush through it now.

“Come here,” I said.

He removed his shirt first.

I had touched his chest in anger, through fabric, in darkness, and during moments that ended too quickly. Seeing him now was different. Broad shoulders. Hard muscle. A faint scar beneath his ribs. Another near his collarbone.

I reached for him.

He caught my wrist and kissed the inside of it.

“Still angry?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

I frowned. “Good?”

“I would worry if desire made you forget.”

The answer reached somewhere deeper than seduction.

He released my wrist and leaned over me.

I touched the scar beneath his collarbone. “What happened?”

“Another night.”

“You are already withholding.”

His mouth curved faintly. “It is not relevant to whether you want my trousers off.”

I laughed before I could stop myself.

The sound startled both of us.

For one brief moment, the room loosened.

Then he kissed me again and the heat returned.

His hand slid beneath my camisole, moving upward along my ribs. He paused before touching my breast.

“May I?”

“Yes.”

His palm closed over me through the thin fabric, and my body reacted with embarrassing speed. My back lifted. A gasp left me. Wesley watched my face as his thumb moved slowly across the sensitive peak.

“You like that.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I am not surprised.”

“No. You sound pleased with yourself.”

“I am.”

I pulled him down by the back of his neck and kissed him hard enough to wipe the satisfaction from his mouth.

It did not work.

He kissed me deeper, then drew the camisole over my head and tossed it aside. Cool air crossed my skin before his mouth replaced it.

The first touch of his tongue made my fingers tighten in the sheets.

He took his time.

Too much time.

He kissed one breast, then the other, learning every place that made my breathing change. His hand moved along my waist and down over my hip, slipping beneath the waistband of my shorts.

I went still.

He lifted his head immediately.

“Stop?”

I looked at him.

Nothing in his face pressured me forward. The desire was obvious, but so was the restraint. He would stop if I asked. He would hate it, but he would do it.

“No.”

His fingers remained where they were. “Tell me.”

“Keep going.”

He lowered his mouth to mine again as his hand slid beneath the fabric.

The first stroke between my thighs made me gasp into his kiss.

Wesley groaned.

The sound was rougher than anything I had heard from him before, stripped of control.

“You are already wet.”

Heat rushed into my face. “Do not sound so arrogant.”

“I am touching proof.”

I bit his shoulder.

His fingers moved again.

Any sharp answer dissolved before I could speak.

He watched me while he touched me, eyes fixed on my face as though every reaction mattered. Slow pressure. A careful rhythm. His thumb circling until my hips began to move without permission.

I clutched his arm.

“Wesley.”

“Tell me what you need.”

“You know.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

I glared at him, though the effect was ruined by the way my body strained toward his hand.

“More.”

He gave it to me.

The pressure built too quickly after weeks of denial and anger. My breathing broke apart. He kissed my throat and moved his fingers with more certainty until I could no longer think around the sensation.

When release finally hit, it pulled a cry from me that I buried against his shoulder. My body tightened around his hand, trembling beneath him.

He held me through it.

No smug remark. No demand.

Only his mouth against my temple and his breathing as rough as mine.

When I opened my eyes, he was watching me.

The intensity in his face made me suddenly shy.

I turned my head.

His fingers touched my chin and brought me back.

“Do not hide from me now.”

“I am not hiding.”

“You are.”

I looked at him. “Then take off the rest of your clothes.”

A dark smile touched his mouth.

“That sounds like an order.”

“It is.”

He obeyed.

The sight of him stripped away the last scraps of humor. He was hard, fully aroused, and larger than I had expected. My body tightened with a mix of desire and nerves.

Wesley noticed.

He returned to the bed and leaned over me, but he did not press forward.

“We stop if you want.”

“I know.”

“I need you to say it.”

“I do not want to stop.”

He kissed me slowly.

His hand moved between my thighs again, checking, preparing, drawing another shudder from me before he positioned himself.

The first pressure made me tense.

He stopped.

“Breathe.”

I almost laughed at the familiar command.

“You use that line too often.”

“You forget too often.”

He kissed me while he entered slowly.

The stretch was intense enough to blur my vision. I gripped his shoulders and held on while he gave me time to adjust, every muscle in his body rigid with restraint.

When he was fully inside me, he lowered his forehead to mine.

Neither of us moved.

For several seconds, there was only breath and the overwhelming closeness of him.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Sure?”

I shifted beneath him.

His eyes closed briefly.

“Yes,” I whispered. “Move.”

He did.

Slowly at first. Deep, controlled strokes that made each inch impossible to ignore. I wrapped my legs around him and pulled him closer, forcing the restraint to crack.

His mouth found mine.

The pace changed.

The bed shifted beneath us as the careful rhythm became harder, hotter, shaped by everything we had denied. He kissed me between broken breaths, one hand gripping my hip while the other braced beside my head.

I met him stroke for stroke.

This was not surrender in the way Marco had demanded it. Wesley did not take my stillness for permission. He watched every reaction, adjusted when I pulled him closer, slowed when my breath caught, and lost control only when I asked him to.

“Harder,” I whispered.

His eyes darkened.

“Say it again.”

“Harder.”

He obeyed.

Pleasure tightened quickly, sharper this time. I clung to him, nails pressing into his back as his hand moved between us.

The second release broke over me with enough force to pull his name from my mouth again.

Wesley followed soon after, body going rigid above mine as he buried his face against my neck and shuddered.

For a long moment, neither of us moved.

Then he shifted carefully and gathered me against him.

I lay with my cheek against his chest, listening to his heartbeat slow. His hand moved along my back in quiet strokes.

No one spoke.

The silence did not feel like concealment this time.

It felt like aftermath.

Eventually, I lifted my head.

Wesley looked down at me.

“This does not fix anything.”

“I know.”

“You still made the wrong choice.”

“Yes.”

“I may still hate you tomorrow.”

“I assumed as much.”

I traced the scar beneath his collarbone.

“And if I leave?”

His hand stilled against my back.

“I protect you from a distance.”

“You do not follow me into every room?”

“No.”

“You do not decide where I sleep?”

“No.”

“You do not drag me back?”

His jaw tightened.

“No.”

I studied him, then rested my head against his chest again.

For tonight, I stayed.

Not because he ordered me to.

Not because Marco had made every other place unsafe.

I stayed because I wanted the warmth of his body beside mine and the truth of what had happened between us.

For the first time since entering Wesley Morano’s house, I slept in his bed by choice.