Her reflexes yanked her hand free. Under the bedside glow, her eyes darted everywhere but his face, as if the air itself had grown too tight to breathe.

"I... I''d rather wait until after the wedding. It just feels right that way."

Seeing her fear, Yannick eased back, palms lifting in surrender. "All right, whatever you say. You must be tired. Get some sleep—I''ll finish the bed myself."

She shook her head once, tucked the corners with meticulous care, then slipped out, soft footsteps swallowed by the hallway.

Yannick sprawled across the mattress afterward, staring at the ceiling as if it hid answers. He turned left, right, left again-sleep refused toe.

His phone lit up. On the screen blinked Calvin''s text: "Why aren''t you picking up?"fn6aa1 Th? link to the orig?n of this information r?sts ?n Find1Novel/fn6aa1

During dinner he''d beenughing with Jocelyn, phone muted, time erased. He''d never noticed Calvin''s calls.

He thumbed redial without thinking, pulse thudding in the hush.

"Hey, Calvin, what''s up?"

"Took you long enough," Calvin said, worry outweighing annoyance.

"Just got in. Phone was across the room-didn''t hear a thing."

Calvin exhaled, tension bleeding out through the speaker.

"We owe you for what you did with Sven. Anything you ever need, the Lindbergs will see it done."

"Come on, you and I don''t keep score."

On paper, Sven was the bodyguard Calvin introduced to Cecilia. In truth, the three men were friends who''d bled together more than once.

"Mm." Calvin sounded ready to end the call.

Yannick couldn''t help asking, "Hey-will you evere back to Tud?"

Silence stretched, thick as smoke, before Calvin finally spoke.

"I''ll return when you get married."

Yannick''s gaze drifted toward Jocelyn''s closed door. A long beatter, he muttered, "Let''s hope that day actually goes smoothly."

"What''s that supposed to mean? Did something happen with Jocelyn?"

Calvin thought, not for the first time, how cruel fate could be: both he and Yannick loved women entangled with the Rainsworth brothers.

"She''s fine. I''m the problem." A soft, self-deprecatingugh. "You know me-born to roam, never pictured marriage. Now it''s racing toward me and, honestly, I''m terrified."

"Quit overthinking. Marry her, build a life, have a kid. We''re not getting any younger."

"Then practice what you preach. Find yourself a bride."

They traded a few more half-teasing, half-earnest jabs about wedding bells, then fell quiet-each man staring into a different darkness imagining futures that felt both near and impossibly far.  s

Yannick ended the call, let the phone fall beside him, and stared at the ceiling fan that carved restless shadows across the room.

He reyed Jocelyn''s cool tone in his head and felt a knot form in his chest. If her walls stayed up like this, marriage might never leave the realm of conjecture.

People always say that when you truly love someone, your body reaches for theirs without thinking. If even desire hesitates, what kind of love is that?

Across the hall, Jocelyny wide-eyed in the dark. Every few breaths, her fingertips brushed the ce where Yannick''s lips had pressed a momentton long, and the memory yed on a loop so vivid it stole sleep from her.

belongs to s

Heat flooded her cheeks. She smacked them lightly, as though the sting might

chase the blush away. "What is happening to me?"

She grabbed her phone, hoping a mindless scroll would drown the flutter in her pulse. A headline shed across the screen: "Second Son of Rainsworth Group, Nichs Rainsworth, Spotted Entering Hater with Unknown Woman After Midnight."  s

Jocelyn tapped the link. Photographs loaded-Nichs in an unbuttoned zer, an unfamiliar woman on his arm, the neon sign of a hotel burning above them.

The copy imed he was drunk, his hand fixed around the woman''s waist as they disappeared beyond the revolving doors.

Nichs? She almost dropped the phone. During all the months she had worked for him, he had guarded his private life like a locked vault-no rumors, no loose

talk.

She opened more articles. New angles appeared, each photo sharper than thest. Her fingers tightened around the device until the case creaked.

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