Page 29 of Restore Me

I shrug. “No idea. Alex must have deleted it by accident.”

He would hate me for lying on him like this. The man never loses anything. He’s more detail-oriented than the arrogant woman standing in front of me. Sloane shakes her head and digs her phone out of her purse. When she taps on the screen, it refuses to come on since its dead. Guess she missed that detail.

“Damn. I forgot to charge it on the way to my parents.”

Her parents? Pieces start to fall into place at the mention of the wealthy older couple I’ve only met a few times. From what I can remember of them Mark is open, personable, and completely in awe of his daughter. He looks at her like she hung the moon, but his wife is a different story. Beautiful, like her daughter, with none of the softness in her hazel eyes.

As far as I can tell, the only person who pisses Sloane off more than me is her mom, and I get it because that woman could give Cersei Lannister a run for her money in the cold and ruthless department. The queen would at least soften for her children though. I don’t think Lauren Carson knows how to be anything but glacial when it comes to Sloane. On the day of Eric’s funeral, she spent the entire service frowning at Sloane’s tears. Like she was morally opposed to a show of real, human emotion.

Is that what happened tonight? Did Lauren spend the evening berating her daughter for not being a heartless bitch? I search Sloane’s face, wishing for a crack in her mask, a peek at the emotions I know are brewing beneath it, but all I see is what she allows me to.

“You must’ve been too busy keeping track of other details to notice.”

It was supposed to be a joke, but the moment the words leave my lips I hear the note of bitterness in them. The indirect reference to the kiss burning my tongue like acid. Sloane catches it too, and her eyes flash with emotion. Going from surprise to guilt before landing on indignation.

My brain chooses to ignore the last emotion, opting instead to focus on the way her pulse is fluttering at the base of her throat. A slight incline of my head, and I could press a kiss there. Breathe in the sweet, fruity smell of her. Feel every beat of her heart against my lips.

Why the fuck did I just think about that?

Probably for the same reason I can’t stop dreaming about her. It all has to be a byproduct of spending so much time around her this past week. Time where we were getting along, and I found myself looking forward to seeing her. Anticipating talking with her. Teasing her without the goal of making her mad enough to walk away.

Sloane moves around me, and her arm brushes my shoulder as she walks to her front door. “Yeah. Like the proper way to store an email, so I don’t lose the pertinent information it contains.”

The key turns in the lock, and her door swings open. She glances at me over her shoulder, toying with the idea of inviting me in. This would be new territory for us. Me inside her home without Eric there. And I feel it. Her brain whirling, trying to decide if it’s worth it to shift us out of the weird space between what we are now and what we could be.

A faint light spills out from inside of the house, framing Sloane’s silhouette in the doorway. Illuminating every curve of her body, and calling up the memory of a girl I never got to know.

The bright fluorescent light spilling from the cracked door of the bathroom connected to her dorm room, bathing her body in its warm glow. Her drunken giggles slipping under my skin as I help her to bed. The sheets smell like her—tropical fruit and the nectar of the sweetest flowers. I kiss her forehead and make her promise to call me in the morning.

“Dominic,” Sloane calls from the open door. “I asked if you wanted to come in?”

My feet start moving towards her before my brain fully processes the question. I take the steps two at a time, eyes glued to the bare soles of her feet that are now padding across the hardwood floors that run throughout the entire first floor. Closing and locking the door behind me, I absorb every detail available to me. Greedy for a glimpse into the sanctuary of a woman who still feels like a mystery to me sometimes.

This isn’t the home she shared with Eric. She moved out of there a year after his death and bought this place. And it’s everything you would expect the home of an interior designer to be—open and airy with perfectly coordinated colors and textures. Furniture that’s stylish but functional. And just the right amount of pillows and throw blankets.

It feels like her.

A little too much like her. Almost like she never shared a home with another person at all. I grit my teeth and run through a thousand different scenarios that could make the glaring absence of Eric in this house sit right with me and come up empty. Yeah, it’s been four years but is that really enough time to just completely erase someone from your life?

Is it enough time for you to be thinking about kissing her throat or dreaming about tasting her on your desk?

I close my eyes and count to ten, hoping for a calm that refuses to come. It makes no sense for me to be judging Sloane on how she chooses to represent her husband in her home after letting my mind go off the rails for the last week. The fact of the matter is, Sloane is single. And her choosing to put away her past to make room for a different kind of future is exactly what Eric would have wanted for her. I’m just glad he isn’t here to see bastards like James Robinson drooling all over her, and I’m even more thankful he won’t ever know how close I am to breaking every rule in the book whenever I’m around his wife.

Although, sometimes a part of me can’t help but feel like he broke them first.

Sloane’s phone is plugged up and charging on the island when I finally make it into her kitchen. She’s tapping her nails on the white quartz counter and watching me with faint curiosity as I take a seat on one of the stools across from her.

“I like your place,” I say, meeting her curious gaze with my own questioning one.

“Thanks. It’s kind of weird having you here. You know, without Eric.”

I rest my arms on the island. “I was just thinking that too. But it feels slightly less weird since he was never—”

“Here.” She cuts in, tilting her head to one side. “Yeah. I suppose that does make it a little less weird.”

“Might also help that you’re being nice to me these days.” I tease and get rewarded with the gift of her smile.

“I don’t think I’m the one who has a problem with being nice.”

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