Page 164 of Their Arrangement
You get caught, don’t text again.
I locked my phone. My heart felt like it was going to crack in half. But I’d bought time. Two and a half days. And all I had to do? Was survive inside a house full of men I was already betraying.
I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell her how much I wanted to stay.I didn’t hear him until it was too late. The soft click of polished shoes behind me. The silence between breaths. I turned too fast, heart in my throat.
Wolfe.
Standing just down the hallway. Hands in his pockets. Jacket half buttoned. Watching me. Like he’d been watching me.
“Long morning?” he asked.
Not cold.
Not warm.
Just… still.
Like he already knew the answer.
I nodded too quickly.
Swallowed.
“Yes.”
My voice cracked on the second syllable.
I hated that.
His eyes moved over me—slow. Not the way a man checks a woman out. The way a predator checks for weakness.
“Red looks good on you.”
I blinked.
Looked down. Realized my blouse was too tight across the chest. My lips flushed from biting them. My pulse high. I looked guilty. Because I was guilty.
He stepped closer. Not much. Just enough that I had to hold my ground.
“I thought you’d stop shaking after last time,” he murmured.
“I’m not shaking.”
“You are.”
He reached out. Not to touch me. To tuck my hair behind my ear. His fingers brushed the edgeof my jaw. Soft. Measured. But it felt like heat bloomed straight through my skin.
I didn’t lean in. But I didn’t pull back. I just stood there. Breath caught. Stomach turning. And in that moment, I didn’t know what scared me more?—
That he might guess what I’d done.
Or that he wouldn’t.
His thumb skimmed a strand of hair that fell again.
“Do you need something?” he asked.
The words were gentle. But his eyes weren’t. They were waiting. Like he already knew something was buried in my purse. Like he wanted to see if I’d flinch when he said it out loud.
