Page 108 of Reign
When her eyes opened, she blinked up at the crystal light fixture overhead, and then she remembered—she was at the Monmouth Hotel, and it was her wedding day.
The sound of steady breathing came from the other side of the bed.
She shifted to stare at Ethan. He slept on his side, one arm tucked beneath the pillow, a lock of dark hair falling across his forehead. Even now, his brow was slightly furrowed, as if he was trying to solve some complicated problem in his dreams.
The memories crashed over her in relentless detail: stumbling in here and falling back onto the bed; Ethan meticulously unbuttoning her pajama shirt, kissing the bare skin of her collarbone as he undid each button; Daphne pulling him back so that his weight settled on top of her…
She remembered falling asleep with her back tucked into the curve of his body. She had tried to move away, but Ethan slipped an arm around her and pulled her close, as if he couldn’t bear not to have her tucked right there against him. As if she was something wondrous and infinitely valuable.
Daphne’s eyes cut to the clock on her bedside table, andshe sucked in a breath. A team of people would be here in one hour to start her hair and makeup.
She lifted a hand to shake Ethan awake, but instead she found herself tracing a finger over him—down the line of his jaw, the slope of his neck, to his shoulders and biceps. She felt suddenly ravenous for this, the sheer joy of touching him.
Ethan’s dark eyes opened and fixed on her. He was silent as she kept up her tactile inventory, sketching him as an artist would a drawing. When she reached his chest, Ethan tugged the duvet lower, letting her fingers brush over his abs, and Daphne felt herself nestling closer in response. He really was so handsome, not in the classical, picture-perfect way that Jefferson was, but in a way that felt more real and somehow more alive.
“Good morning,” he murmured, reaching a hand behind her head. But Daphne pulled away before he could kiss her.
It shattered the spell that had fallen over the room.
“Ethan, this has been—” She hesitated, because what could she say? “You have to leave.”
He sat up. The duvet fell down around his waist, and Daphne made herself look away. It was hard to focus with Ethan sitting there, shirtless. A sickening sense of déjà vu coiled in her stomach; she couldn’t believe she was once again shuffling Ethan out of her bed.
“We should talk about this,” he said carefully.
“What is there to talk about? We made a mistake—”
“Don’t do that!” His voice was so sharp that she looked up at him, startled. “It’s not a mistake,” he went on, more gently. “Not when you love someone.”
She froze, unable to speak.
“You know how I feel about you,” Ethan added.
And she did know. His feelings were there in every line of the toast she’d heard last night—the toast that Jeff had spoken but Ethan had written. For her.
“Please don’t do this,” she whispered.
“Daphne,wealready did this! Both of us!” Ethan flung out a hand to indicate the clothes scattered on the floor, his white shirt glaring in the predawn light.
She swallowed. “You don’t understand.”
“Thenhelpme understand! Talk to me. Just don’t run away again.”
“Are you serious?” She dug her hands into the fluffy duvet and twisted them into angry fists. “You’re the one who ran away, Ethan! You’re the one who gave up on us, that day I poured my heart out to you!”
He flinched. “I’m sorry about that, but I’m here now.”
Daphne wasn’t finished. “I begged you to love me, and you said you were choosing Nina!”
“I’m sorry!” Ethan repeated, his voice low but thrumming with intensity. “Look, I could make sense of Nina. The way I felt about her was manageable, straightforward, simple. She is…easy to love.”
“You love her?”
“No, I said that she’s easy to love!” Ethan cried out. “But Ididn’tlove her, because my heart belongs to you! It always has, since the very first day we met.”
To her horror, Daphne felt tears pricking at her eyes. Ethan reached for her hand and held it in both of his.
“The way I love you feels impossible, Daphne. I love you so much that I’ve dated other people to make you jealous, that I’ve committedcrimesfor you. I love you so much that when you chose Jeff, I retaliated by putting as much distance between us as I possibly could. But I can’t keep running from this anymore.”
