Page 115 of Love Me Tomorrow

It was a truce that I willingly accepted.

The kiss turns heavier, deepening, as though Owen can read the tumultuous thoughts flitting through my head and seeks to vaporize them. My fingers rake through his soaked hair, just as he swings the front door open and whisks us inside. The door slams shut with an echoingthudthat comes in conjunction with another boom of thunder outside.

Droplets of water slick down my skin. Owen moves his mouth over mine, working us backward through the living room with me still cradled in his arms. My purse slips off my shoulder and falls to the floor, followed shortly by the cheap, one-dollar flip-flops that I always keep in my glove compartment for an unexpected occasion when sky-high heels won’t do.

Breaking from the kiss, I gasp, “You don’t . . . Sex isn’t what you need from me right now.”

Owen’s black eyes never leave my face, not even dipping down to my beyond-wet shirt that I bet reveals all. “No,” he says with a vulnerable edge to his voice, “I need you to breathe.”

Oh.

My heart quickens at a fast clip. Hands moving to cup his face, I pause only when I hear the sound of my name from the TV:

“—Savannah Rose experienced major backlash on social media after her personal email account was hacked this morning. Several sources are reporting that it might be Savannah Rose’s very own family who have, allegedly, exposed her—all in the name of bringing more attention to their restaurants down in the Big Easy. This is Jeff Noonan; more on these unfolding events after this break.”

I press a firm hand to Owen’s chest. “Let me down.”

His grip tightens on my ass, bolstering me farther up in his arms. “You don’t need to hear that shit, sweetheart.”

Pulling back so I can see his face, I trace the lines of his firmly set mouth with the tip of my damp finger, then note the hollow look in his dark-as-night gaze. “There’s no hiding from it, Owen. There’s no standing back, clicking your heels together, and hoping Dorothy will sweep you away to twenty-four hours ago.”

Jaw clenched tightly, he cuts his attention to the ceiling. Surrounded by his arms as I am, I feel the heavy breath that inflates his chest. The hem of his drenched T-shirt sits on the tops of my thighs, lending a chill to the air that seeps into my bones.

“Owen, please—”

“I bought this place to flip it,” he edges out, his voice smooth like whiskey poured over ice, “no secret, there. Buy it, rent it, sell it. Same as I’ve done with all my other properties. But then you showed up here and we had sex on the brand new couch I bought because I figured guests would like it. And then I found myself ordering a bed big enough for two—with enough space that your crazy cat could be isolated in one corner—and I didn’t stop there. I bought nightstands and a dresser, and then I started imagining what it would be like to have us fighting over who got stuck with the bottom drawers.”

My stomach dips, every one of my limbs stringing tight like they might snap at any second. “I’m shorter,” I whisper, “so I’d be willing to take one for the team.” Owen doesn’t smile and his eyes don’t gleam the way they always do when we banter, and my heart breaks a little more for him . . . and maybe even for us too. Nerves ricochet through my body when I push the dreaded question past my lips: “Are you—are you breaking up with me?”

“Not in this lifetime, Rose.” Tension seeps into his body as he wheels me around to plant my wet butt on the sideboard table. His chin juts forward defiantly. “No, in this lifetime, we barter for drawers and we have only this one TV in our house because if we’re in our bedroom, that means I’m too busy makin’ you come.”

Core aching, I try to bring my knees together, but Owen’s big body keeps them spread wide. “Ourbedroom, huh? You have this all planned out.”

“I thought I did.”

“What changed?”

“Everything,” he grinds out, his hands locked on my hips like he’s desperate for the tangible connection. “Nothing about what happened today feels like a coincidence, Sav.” Then, without warning, he wheels around to head for the TV stand—the brand new,tealTV stand, the one he bought for us. It doesn’t match the coffee table, but my eyes don’t care when my heart is practically singing for having been on his mind. Snatching up the remote control, he jabs a button and the video on the screen leaps backward until Owen freezes it on the newscaster, my name blocked out in red along the bottom of the clip. Controller pointed at the TV, Owen’s gaze snaps to mine. “News of your email account being hacked hit around nine this morning. Six hours later, that fuckerCelebrity Tea Presentsuploaded an article about me.”

My stare flits between him and the frozen image on the TV. “Celebrity Teadidn’t even report on me—at least he hadn’t yet when I left my parents’ house an hour ago.” I think of the article I found, directly after I listened to Owen’s voicemail. “I was pretty much a footnote in the piece he wrote about you, nothing more.” I want to ask if Owen’s read them yet, any of the hundreds of emails I’d drafted to him, but I bite back the question before I can make a fool out of myself. Sliding off the sideboard, I move to his side. “For eight months,Celebrity Teahas always been the first to report on anything relating to me orPut A Ring On It. Always.”

Slinging the remote control onto the couch, Owen falls back with his hands linked behind his head. “I’m the son of a cop, Sav. Brother to a cop, too. All that information being leaked on the same day fuckingreeksof something rotten.”

I’ve never been slow on the uptake, but a part of me doesn’t want to believe in Owen’s theory. It’s one thing to have your life upended by secrets leaking, another thing entirely to believe that it was all schemed and conducted for the sake of some grand master plan. If my life were a movie, I’d want it to be a romantic comedy—I’ve never been into thrillers where my heart rate ticks and my most harrowing fears become reality.

“When I was with my family earlier, we called Frannie. She offered her lawyer to us—I guess he has a lot of connections with the FBI—and he’s already started moving on trying to figure out who’s behind this.”

“We know who’s behind this.” Before I can edge a word in, Owen turns on his heel, striding into the kitchen. Shocked at his abrupt departure, I find myself rooted in place. Heavy footsteps return moments later, and I watch as Owen sets a laptop on the coffee table. Without fanfare, he reaches for the hem of his shirt and draws the nearly translucent fabric up and over his head. He throws it off to the side, avoiding the new rug, where it lands on the slate floor with a wet smack.

The chill returns with a vengeance as I sit next to him on the couch, our knees bumping, his clad in sopping wet jeans, mine sheathed in equally wet cotton khakis. When I shiver, Owen jumps up, wordlessly heading for the hallway. Two minutes later, he comes back with an oversized T-shirt and a pair of mesh shorts.

“I tried to pick out your size,” he says gruffly, handing them over with a dip of his chin. “But when I saw the shirt, I couldn’t resist—grabbed the smallest size they had.”

Unfolding the black T, my eyes take in the cat illustrated in white. It’s flashing a middle finger that looks a little too human-like to be remotely feline. Surrounding the cat are the words inscribed in white font:They call me a cat lady like it’s a bad thing.

A watery laugh catches in my throat.

Owen shifts his weight. “Not too on the nose?” he asks, his voice low. “I’m always up for feedback.”

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