Page 120 of Merry Me
I didn’t have to keep looking over my shoulder. Didn’t have to brace for a voice I hadn’t heard in years, or a face I didn’t want to see. That door—the one he’d left swinging open behind him—was finally shut. And for once, I didn’t feel like I had to hold it closed.
She nodded, her smile small and tired. It didn’t quite reach her eyes, but it was enough. Then she turned, laughing a beat later at something Levi said across the table, like the ache inside her hadn’t just opened a little wider.
Easton nudged my knee again.
The touch jolted me. I turned—a dangerous mistake—and found him already watching me.
His gaze was molten, locked on mine, the candlelight catching in those wild green eyes like he was made of trouble and temptation and everything I’d spent all this time convincing myself I couldn’t have.
But now?
With that door finally closed…I didn’t just feel brave enough to want him.
I feltexcitedfor what came next.
He leaned in, low and quiet, just for me. “Let’s get out of here,” he murmured.
His fingers slid up my thigh, one last slow, deliberate stroke, and then they were gone, leaving nothing but heat and a wicked ache behind.
I turned toward him, catching the glint in his eyes, the tension in his jaw like he was hanging on by a thread.
That wild, reckless thing inside me didn’t just stir—itsurged.
I didn’t hesitate.
“Yes,” I whispered, already breathless. “Please.”
I stood up too fast. My chair scraped against the wooden floor with a sharp screech that turned a few heads. Easton rose beside me, steady and tall, his hand brushing the small of my back as I reached for balance, like he was already ready to catch me.
I barely looked at him. I couldn’t. Not with my pulse already pounding in anticipation, not with the way my body still hummed from his touch beneath the table. I was so ready. He grabbed my hand, and I stepped toward the door, and we were?—
The crash stopped everything.
Sharp. Sudden. Shattering.
Glass splintered across the wood floor, cutting clean through the soft string music and low chatter like a warning shot. Paige stood frozen, the broken stem of her wine glass still pinched between two fingers, red spilling in slow motion down her wrist like blood in a fairy tale.
And then I followed her gaze.
Straight across the room, past the flickering candles and festive garlands. To the figure standing near the open door, snow clinging to his boots, his shoulders stiff beneath a weathered coat.
My stomach dropped.
My lungs forgot how to work.
He looked older. Of course he did. Gray threaded through his dark hair, his skin pulled tighter at the jaw, but the eyes—they were the same. Pale. Detached. Like he was already halfway out the door even as he stood in the middle of the room.
Terry.
My father.
CHAPTER 22
NATALIE
He hadn’t stayed away. He was here.
And just like that, everything inside me recoiled. My body, once a current of heat and want and the chance of maybe, now felt hollow and tight, like someone had pulled the string too hard and snapped it.
