Page 150 of Their Arrangement
My breath caught. My thighs clenched instinctively. Something shifted inside me—liquid and hot and wrong.
No.
Not now.
The ache bloomed. I adjusted in my seat, trying to ease it. The chair creaked. The waistband of my skirt pressed too tight. The corset cinched too hard against my lower ribs. Heat rolled up the back of my neck.
I swallowed hard.
Another pulse.
Then another.
Panic set in. My legs pressed together tighter. My hands returned to the keyboard just to keep from shaking. I typed nonsense. Just movement. Just noise.
But I could feel it. Building. Spreading.
The telltale warmth between my thighs wasn’t lust this time. It was blood. Unwelcome. Untimed. Unforgivable. And that’s when the panic turned cruel.
When was the last time I bled? I blinked hard. Tried to remember. A date. A month. Anything. Had it been five weeks? Six? Had I skipped it the month Wolfe touched me? Was it stress? Or something worse?
My fingers twitched against the keys.
Think.
The bathroom at my old apartment. A cheap pad from the bodega downstairs. I remembered pulling it from a plastic wrapper with wet hands. I remembered Camille knocking on the door, teasing me through the glass.
That was—what?
A month ago?No.
Longer.
Too long.
Stupid.
I never tracked it properly.
I was always careful with passwords. Careful with shadows. Careful with men. But not this. Not my body. Not the one thing that should’ve warned me before it cracked open under silk and shame and?—
Oh God.
Wolfe was still watching.
His eyes didn’t move. His jaw didn’t twitch. His gaze was fixed—heavy. Knowing. He couldn’t see it. Not from here. Not yet.
But he could see me come undone. And I couldn’t let that happen here. Not like this.
I grabbed my things and ran for the bathroom. The door slammed behind me. I didn’t even check the lock. I just dropped my purse and backed into the wall of the private bathroom stall, breath coming fast, fingers shaking as I reached beneath myskirt.
There it was.
Blood. Bright.
Wet.
Humiliating.
