The words “I love you” hung in the air long after Draven had slipped out of Freya’s room that night. She lay awake until dawn, staring at the ceiling, her body sore in the most delicious ways and her heart a chaotic storm. Love. From Draven Cross. The man who had been larger than life since she was a teenager. The man who was married to someone else. The man who was her father’s best friend and business partner. It should have felt like a dream. Instead, it felt like the beginning of the end.
By morning, the guilt had settled deep in her bones, but it couldn’t touch the warmth that spread through her whenever she remembered the way he had looked at her — raw, vulnerable, completely undone. She touched the faint bruises on her hips and smiled despite herself.
Breakfast was a minefield. Vi
