Page 59 of Moonlit Temptation

That time would skip over the day so you didn’t have to face it and instead you got to carry on how you had been, with your wings spread wide, ready to live.

Because now that you’d had a taste, you didn’t want it to end.

That was how I felt right now as I packed up the final items in my backpack.

For me, London was more than a city. It turned into a person.

And now I was leaving both.

Saint leaned against the balcony’s railing on an actual business call, while I walked around the room, double-checking to make sure neither of us forgot anything.

An action that was futile.

I already knew a piece of myself wouldn’t be leaving this room.

My heart had been stolen between sheets that would be washed as soon as we left, but the moans and whispers would be trapped between the walls.

An affair to remember.

I’d tried to keep my spirits light, to pretend the departure wasn’t weighing on my heart like an anchor.

Saint hadn’t promised me anything. Nothing that went beyond London. Not a relationship, not love, not a future.

All things we couldn’t have.

Not if Saint wanted to stay a member of our family, which he did. And I wasn’t going to ask him to give that up for me. I wasn’t that selfish. A small part of me wished I was, though.

I agreed to this arrangement. I promised myself I would be okay when it ended.

Which was why whenever Saint glanced my way from where he stood on the balcony, I made sure I shot him a smile. Sure, it might’ve had a little more teeth than lips, but it was the best I could do.

I didn’t want to leave.

And not just because of Saint. But because of this feeling of freedom I had found. The grounded weight that sunk in my soul and made me feel whole. I felt settled in London, like my chaotic heart had finally calmed, content to just be.

I didn’t want to go back to the person I was when I got here. Restless, hollow. Lost in crippling loneliness.

My siblings were my closest friends, but even they weren’t going to be home for long.

Archer was moving to Seattle next month, more like weeks now, and Jessa was going to law school around the same time.

I was going to be alone in the house I hated so much.

With only my father’s presence for contested company.

I didn’t want to go back to the cold house that doubled as my gilded cage, not when I had set the fire free inside me, finding someone who stroked my flames instead of smothered them.

I walked out of the bathroom with Saint’s toothbrush in hand as he crossed back into the room, shutting the doors gently behind him.

The look on his face splintered my chest.

He was already shutting down.

When our gazes locked, there was no warmth behind his dark eyes. Not even a flicker of playfulness. No twitch of wicked thoughts.

Nothing.

It was like staring at a statue in the museums we visited.

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