Page 154 of Reckless Obsession

“You are too much,” he says.

I snort.

“But I like you that way,” he adds before I can argue, his expression turning soft in that rare way that makes me forget every defense I have. “And I’ll do anything for you.”

The ache in my chest loosens.

“Private island in Italy,” I repeat, testing the words.

“Yes.”

“For two weeks.”

“Yes.”

“With no one else around.”

Tristan gives me a look. “There will be staff.”

“Ruining everything.”

“They will stay out of your way.”

I finally smile, small at first, then wider when he watches me like that smile is worth all the trouble it took to get there.

“Okay,” I say, settling back into his side and reclaiming my place in his lap as if I never left. “Lucky you. I was thinking of setting your things on fire.”

Chapter 27

TRISTAN

The city is still waking up when I knot my tie, the light outside pale and grey against the floor-to-ceiling windows of the closet.

Maksim is still asleep behind me.

I can hear it in the quality of his breathing—slow, even, undisturbed by the fact that I’ve been moving around this room for the last fifteen minutes. He sleeps like someone who has finally decided the world isn’t going to fall apart the second he closes his eyes. It’s a small thing. Most people wouldn’t notice.

I notice.

I notice most things about him now. That’s the inconvenient truth of the last three months.

This new apartment was never meant to be permanent. I signed the lease as a solution, a way to keep him from sneaking into my other place at odd hours and to keep us contained somewhere no one would think to look.

Except somewhere between then and now, it stopped being just a solution. It became the place I actually want to be.

I haven’t let anyone this close in years. Not since my marriage ended, not since I buried whatever part of me used to believe in easy things like trust and permanence. The last person I did any of this with—the quiet mornings, the shared closet space, the domestic rhythm of two lives folding into one—was Jake. That ended the way most things involving me eventually do: quietly, then not quietly at all.

I told myself I was done with all of it.

Then Maksim happened.

I adjust my cufflinks, glancing at him in the mirror’s reflection. He’s sprawled across the bed, blankets kicked half off, one arm flung over his face, as if even sleep requires him to be dramatic about something.

I don’t think I deserve this.

That thought sits in me most mornings, quiet but persistent, like something I’ve learned to carry rather than something I expect to resolve. I’ve done enough in my life to know indulgence like this isn’t earned. It’s just given, sometimes, to people who don’t know what to do with it.

But that night at the cabin settled something in me I hadn’t expected.