FOURTEEN

The house was quiet again.

I slipped out of my room barefoot, hoodie half-zipped over my nightshirt, heading for the kitchen like I’d done it a hundred times before. My mouth was dry, my head still buzzing with the leftover adrenaline from earlier—the dinner, the kiss, the weirdly electric, unspoken mess of it all.

I wasn’t expecting anyone to be there. Especially not him.

Wesley stood by the kitchen counter, shirtless again, sipping from a glass of water like he hadn’t nearly unzipped reality a few hours ago. His laptop was open on the island, its glow casting a cool light across his face. He looked calm. Collected. Maybe even bored.

My eyes dropped before I could stop them. Broad shoulders. Cut chest. That same V-line I had no business remembering, but apparently my brain didn’t care.

And then my hand tingled. That memory again. The way he’d guided it down his chest earlier, like it was nothing. Like I belonged there. My skin flushed just from the ghost of it.

I blinked, tried to play it off, and reached for a bottle of water from the fridge.

“You always work half-naked?” I asked, keeping my tone light.

He didn’t look up. “Just got out of the shower. Had some things to finish.”

Right. Of course.

I twisted the cap off the bottle, took a long sip, and turned to leave. My heart was doing something stupid in my chest again, but I told myself it was fine. I could go back to my room, crawl under the covers, forget about how warm the kitchen suddenly felt.

But I stopped at the doorway.

Something about the silence—it scraped against me. Loud and heavy. He hadn’t asked me anything. Hadn’t even acknowledged what happened. Like it didn’t matter. Like I didn’t matter.

And I didn’t know why that pissed me off.

I turned back around slowly, bottle still in hand, heartbeat suddenly louder than the fridge humming in the corner.

I didn’t know what I was going to say.

But I knew I couldn’t leave it like this.

I turned back and faced him, the bottle of water gripped tight in my hand like I might chuck it at his head if he said the wrong thing.

“Are we really not going to talk about what the hell happened tonight?” I asked.

Wesley didn’t even flinch. He took a calm sip from his glass and said, “There’s nothing to talk about.”

That made something snap.

I took a step toward him. “Are you serious? You stripped me down in front of someone. You guided my hand down your body like it was some kind of—what? Power move? Performance art? And you’re just gonna pretend it didn’t happen?”

He finally looked at me, slow and calm, like I was the one being irrational. “I told you. It wasn’t a game.”

“Then what was it?” I snapped. “Am I just a pawn in whatever messed-up pissing contest you and David have going on? Was that the whole point of it?”

He didn’t answer right away. Just lifted his glass, drank again, then set it on the counter like he had all the time in the world.

“There was no game,” he said finally. “I made it clear I wasn’t sharing my wife. If we’re going to sell this, we need to be convincing. That’s still the deal... right?”

I laughed, sharp and angry. “Yeah, it is. But David was right. This marriage—it’s just about keeping Marco off my back. That’s all this is. So why do you even care who looks at me?”

His eyes held mine. Calm. Steady.

“I don’t like sharing.”

It wasn’t even loud. Just… matter-of-fact. Like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

I stared at him for a second, then scoffed. “You don’t get to say that. You don’t get to act like some jealous husband when we’re not doing anything even close to husband and wife. Unless you count fake kisses in public or having my hand halfway down your pants as ‘bonding time.’”

He said nothing.

“You could be sleeping with someone else right now and I wouldn’t bat an eye,” I pushed, throwing my hands up. “You don’t owe me loyalty, and I don’t owe you anything either.”

“I’m not,” he said.

The words were flat. Clean. Like he didn’t even have to think about it.

I stared at him. “Why the hell not?”

Wesley’s expression didn’t shift. “Like I said,” he murmured, walking past me toward the door, “I don’t like sharing.”

I nearly chucked the bottle at his back.

But instead, I stood there, mouth open, heart pounding, and absolutely sure that he’d just gotten the last word—again.

I stood there, water bottle still clenched in my hand like a weapon. My jaw was tight, my entire body buzzing with leftover anger—and something else I didn’t have the energy to name.

I could’ve thrown it. I really could’ve. Just launched it straight at the back of his stupid, calm head. But I didn’t.

Instead, I muttered a string of curses under my breath, turned around, and stormed off toward my room, each step louder than necessary. I didn’t care if he heard. In fact, I wanted him to hear. Maybe it would crack that blank face of his. Maybe it wouldn’t. Either way, I was done.

The hallway stretched out ahead of me, dim and quiet. Too quiet. The kind of silence that starts to feel wrong if you think about it too long.

I was halfway to my room when it happened.

Everything blinked. The overhead lights flickered and a loud buzzing sound penetrated the atmosphere.

I looked up, a wave of confusion crossing my face. I couldn't register what just happened quickly before the lights died completely.

And then, total darkness.

The lights cut out, just like that. The entire house dropped into black silence. Not a flicker. Not even emergency lights. Just gone.

I froze in place, heart stopping for a second. My fingers clenched tighter around the water bottle.

“Great,” I muttered. “Perfect.”

I waited. Expected the lights to flicker back on. Maybe a generator kicking in. Something.

But nothing happened.

No buzz. No hum. Just the kind of silence that makes you feel like the world’s holding its breath.

And then BOOM.

A deep, heavy sound exploded from somewhere outside the house. The walls shuddered. The windows rattled in their frames. The floor beneath me actually shook like something big had hit it.

I stumbled back, nearly dropping the bottle.

“What the...”

Another rumble followed, this one lower, farther away but just as gut-deep.

It wasn’t thunder. It wasn't even raining outside.

Something had gone off.

An explosion. Outside. Close.

My breath caught in my throat as I turned back toward the kitchen instinctively. My feet didn’t move right away. My body was stuck between fight and flight, trying to catch up with whatever the hell just happened.

Whatever this was, it wasn’t random.

And deep down, I already knew, it had something to do with us.

To do with me.