Chapter 86

Chapter 86

Jessica's stomach dropped.

"Well." Michael looked at her, his tone leaving no room for argument. "You don't have a bed anymore. Come with me."

"No." The refusal came out before she could even think. She'd sleep on the couch before she'd let him take her back to that estate, that house, that life. It would suffocate her.

Michael didn't wait for her to say anything else. He moved fast. One arm swept beneath her knees, the other caught her back, lifting her clean off the floor. Her mind stalled. Icy shock hit and she immediately started fighting him, arms and legs flailing.

"Michael! Put me down! You absolute...put me down!"

Her voice cracked on the last word. Embarrassment and fury twisted together, heat flaring behind her eyes.

He didn't even flinch. He just walked in long, unhurried strides through the bedroom doorway and straight toward the front door. Jessica beat her fists against his chest. He made no move to put her down, which only made her more furious.

"I swear to God, if you don't put me down right now, I will scream."

The corner of his mouth curved. Cold. Knowing. Something like a smile flickered in those ice blue eyes.

He slowed down. Just for a second, but he didn't even give her the opportunity to follow through on the threat.

She didn't.

The door across the hall had cracked open, just an inch. She felt her neighbor's curious eyes tracking their every move.

Jessica went rigid in his arms. She clamped her jaw shut . Her face flooding with heat, and didn't make another sound.

Michael's mouth curved into a deeper smirk.

He carried her out of the apartment, down the stairs, then deposited her into the waiting Bentley with the efficiency of someone who'd done this before. Justin, already behind the wheel. The engine running before the door clicked shut.

The city blurred past the windows. Jessica sat rigidly in the passenger seat, arms crossed, staring straight ahead. Michael didn't speak either, but she felt his gaze slide toward her, lingering with something she couldn't name and didn't want to.

The car pulled up in front of a hotel. Not just any hotel. The kind with a marble lobby and a doorman in white gloves.

Michael got out and opened her door himself. Jessica didn't move.

"I'm not going back with you." Her voice came out rough, tired.

"I'm not asking you to." His voice was quiet, but stead: the kind of steady that had nothing to prove. "One night. That's all I'm asking. Think it over, and tomorrow morning I'll come for your answer."

He paused.

"You can stay here, or you can come home. I'll respect whatever you decide." He held out the key card. "But I need you to actually decide."

Then he turned and walked back to the car. No hesitation. No glance over his shoulder. Just a straight, unhurried gait that made it harder to breathe than any argument would have.

Jessica stood on the sidewalk, key card in hand, and watched him go.

 

The room was beautiful. Of course it was.

She took a long shower, letting the hot water run until her fingers pruned, and still couldn't shake the cold that had settled somewhere behind her sternum.

She lay on top of the duvet, too soft, too wide, too quiet, and stared at the ceiling.

One night. Think it over.

His words kept looping in her head, and she couldn't break it.

Eventually she gave up pretending she might sleep and reached for her phone.

Jessica: Lynn, hypothetically. If someone hurt you badly. Like, genuinely shattered you. And then months later they came back and said they wanted to start over, that they'd made a mistake... what would you do?

The reply came faster than she expected.

Lynn: Jess, I can give you all the logic in the world and it won't matter. The only thing that matters is what your gut says. Do you still love him? If you don't,l go live your real life this time, and don't look back. But if you do... maybe give yourself permission to find out what could happen. Life's too short to spend it protecting yourself from the one person you actually want.

Jessica read it twice. Then a third time.

Do you still love him?

She didn't know. Or maybe she did know, and that was the problem.

She knew that every time she saw him, something in her chest pulled tight. She knew that she'd spent months convincing herself it was anger—and that she'd never quite managed to believe it.

But she also knew the way Sarah had looked at her across that crowded bar. She knew what it felt like to be the person standing on the outside looking in. She knew every scar she'd collected, and exactly who had left them.

She rolled over and pressed her face into the pillow.

The harder she tried not to think about it, the sharper everything became. Sarah's cruelty. Philip's steady kindness. Lynn's quiet warning about a world full of people who never had to face consequences.

And underneath all of it: Michael. The way he'd kissed her. The way he'd stepped in front of a bullet without a second thought.

She was still turning it over when the first grey light of dawn crept under the curtains. Only then did exhaustion finally win, pulling her under before she could reach any kind of answer.

 

She woke to sunlight flooding the room and her phone buzzing against the nightstand.

10:04 AM. Four missed calls—all from Thora.

Jessica frowned and hit redial.

"Jessica!" Thora's voice came through sharp and slightly breathless. "Are you home? What on earth is going on over there? All that banging and crashing around, my ceiling's been shaking since seven this morning! If you're doing some kind of renovation, you need to give me notice, honey. There are rules about—"

"I'm not home." Jessica was already sitting up, already reaching for her jacket. "Thora, I'm not there. I'll call you back."

She hung up and was out the door in under two minutes.

 

She smelled it before she saw it: the sharp, clean scent of fresh paint drifting down the stairwell.

Outside her apartment, a moving truck was double-parked at the curb. Two workers were wrangling a new bed frame through the building's front entrance. Another was hauling boxes of what looked like hardware and fixtures up the stairs.

And standing in the middle of all of it, black coat, arms loosely folded, directing the whole operation with the calm authority of someone who had never once in his life been told no—

Michael.

He turned before she reached him, like he'd sensed her. His eyes found her immediately through the small crowd, and one corner of his mouth lifted.

Jessica saw red.

She pushed through the workers toward him, and Justin materialized out of nowhere, stepping smoothly into her path.

"Ms. Brooks." He gave her a pained, apologetic smile. "You're back. Chief Sullivan put this together for you—just, um, please don't—"

"Don't?" She stepped around him and closed the remaining distance to Michael in four strides. "What is this? Who gave you permission to touch my apartment?"

Michael didn't answer. Instead, he reached out and tucked a windblown strand of hair back from her face—a gesture so casual, so unhurried, that it stopped her mid-breath.

Around them, a couple of the workers exchanged glances. Her neighbor from the second floor, who had apparently come down to investigate the noise, pressed her lips together to hide a smile.

"Sweetheart," Michael said, low and even, with just enough warmth underneath to be infuriating. "Relax."

He leaned down, his mouth close to her ear. "You said this place was too small. I'm just making it work."

"I never said—" She caught herself. Tried again. "Don't call me that. We are not—" She turned to the small audience that had gathered, cheeks burning. "He's not my—we're not—"

Michael's palm closed gently over her mouth.

Warm. Unhurried. Carrying that faint scent of cedar that she had spent four months trying to forget.

The words died before they reached her lips.