Page 54 of Claiming Genevieve

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GENEVIEVE

The morning of my doctor’s appointment to have my cast removed is the best day I can remember having in weeks. When I express that to Rowan over breakfast, he gives me a narrow look, a forkful of bacon halfway to his mouth.

“Better than our wedding day, lass?”

I roll my eyes. “I’m getting my cast taken off, not a ball and chain added, so yeah. I’d say so.”

Rowan presses a hand to his chest. “You wound me,taibhseach. Besides,” he adds, his eyes glinting with a mischievous light as he looks at me across the table, “if I wanted to chain you up…”

“Stop it.” I toss a napkin at him, and he catches it, his eyes still gleaming as his gaze holds mine. I can see the heat there clearly… and I can all but read every thought going through his head. Most of them, I think, do involve what he could do to me with chains… if I’d allow it.

The air thickens between us, and I swallow hard, dropping my gaze to the strawberry muffin in front of me that I’ve been picking apart. I can feel the tension snapping taut, like a thread close to breaking, and it’s only going to get worse. We have another week before it’s time to try again for a baby, and with every day that passes, I can feel Rowan’s awareness of just how long that is growing.

If I’m being honest with myself, I feel it, too. He tries to be gentlemanly, getting changed in the bathroom instead of in front of me, avoiding anything that might make it seem as if he’s trying to tempt me into breaking my rules. But living together makes it impossible for that heat not to build. Somehow, in setting rules about what we can and can’t do in the bedroom, I’ve made our relationship into something taboo. Something forbidden. And that only seems to have made things worse.

I crumble another bit of muffin between my fingertips, trying not to think about what I heard last night when I almost walked in on Rowan in the shower. I’d been preoccupied thinking about my appointment, ready for bed, trying to hobble in on my crutches. I hadn’t even registered the sound of the water until I’d opened the door and heard not only the shower, but the hard slap of flesh against flesh coming from the other side of the opaque glass door—and the sound of Rowan’s pleasured groan, ending on something that sounded very much like my name.

“Are you alright, lass?” There’s a hint of mischief in Rowan’s voice, and I don’t dare look up to meet his gaze. “You’re a bit pink.”

“It’s warm in here.” I stop shredding my muffin and look at the time. “I need to leave soon.”

“Aye.” He follows my gaze. “I’ll drive you. Unless you’re more comfortable with Rory’s driving, and then I’ll sit in the back?—”

“You don’t need to come with me.” I blurt it out, looking at him. “I’m fine. It’s just a doctor’s appointment.”

“I’m coming with you.” His tone brooks no argument. His gaze softens, and I feel something in my chest twist at what I see there—something very akin to regret. “I know you still think this is at least somewhat my fault, lass. I want to be there when you find out what comes after.”

I swallow hard. “I know what comes after. I start rehab for my ankle. And I either accept that I’ll only ever be a dancer in the company, or I find something else to do with my life.”

“Maybe—”

“No.” I cut him off, feeling a burn at the back of my eyelids. “Nomaybe. That’s what they’re going to tell me.”

I can’t let myself hope for anything else. To do that is like asking to feel the devastation and grief that I felt the night of the accident all over again—to relive it. There’s no point in hoping for something that I know can’t happen. Not when I haven’t yet come to terms with it completely the first time.

I push myself up from the table, reaching for my crutches, and Rowan follows me. I don’t look at him while he handles cleaning up from breakfast, instead choosing to stand at one of the windows, looking out over the city. I bite my lip, thinking of when I moved here to come to Juilliard—when the world felt so much more expansive, so capable of offering up all of my dreams. When everything felt so much more possible.

Now, I feel caged. Helpless. Caught in a web of mistakes that I didn’t even see I was making until it was too late.

My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I ignore it. It might be Dahlia or Evelyn, wishing me luck today. It might also be Chris, texting me again. Threatening me again. A reminder of one of those mistakes.

Rowan and I head down to the garage, where he leads me over to the Aston Martin, helping me in. “The valet is going to fuckin’ pass out when I hand them the keys to this,” he says with a grin, the car purring as he revs the engine.

“I’m amazed you’d let the valet touch it.”

“I like to live on the edge.” Rowan grins at me, hitting the gas and peeling out of the garage.

I gasp, grabbing onto the seat, and he chuckles. I roll my eyes at him. “Showoff.”

“Oh, if I were showing off, we’d be going much faster.” He looks over at me, weaving into traffic. “Maybe we’ll drive out into the country sometime, find an open road…”

“I’ll pass.” I shake my head. “I’ve already had a fractured ankle. I don’t need more injuries to add to the tally when you wrap this thing around a tree.”

Rowan presses his hand to his chest in a now-familiar gesture, and I look away, shaking my head. It itches at me that I know his gestures, like that one, now. It’s the kind of intimacy that comes with living together, with marriage. The kind of intimacy that goes hand in hand with arealrelationship… not the kind we have.

I do my best to push the thought away. Rowan pulls up to the valet, handing the keys over to a guy who looks like he’s in his early twenties, and who stares at the Aston Martin like he’d park it for free. When Rowan comes around to open my door and helps me out of the car, his hand brushes against my lower back, and I feel a wave of heat wash through me.

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