Cinder had made it easy, really. He'd drawn his line at the club, reinforced it on the plane, made it perfectly clear tonight that whatever I'd hoped for wasn't going to happen. I should have been grateful and not wanted more. Should have taken the rejection as the gift it was—a clean break before anyone got hurt.
Instead, I just felt hollow. And cold. So fucking cold.
I forced myself into the shower. It scalded my skin, turning it red almost instantly, but the cold underneath didn't budge. My dragon had locked down, protecting something that didn't need protecting anymore, unable to distinguish between physical threat and emotional devastation.
I stayed under the spray until my legs threatened to give out, then stumbled back into the bedroom and collapsed onto the bed. The hotel blankets were thin, useless. I pulled every single one over myself anyway, burrowing into them like I could hide from my own body.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand.
You out of the shower?Max's text glowed on the screen.
I stared at it for a long moment, then typed back:Yeah. All good. Going to sleep.
The lie came easily. Too easily.
Another buzz.You sure? I can come back.
I'm sure. Thanks, Max.
The dots appeared, disappeared, appeared again.Okay. But text me if you need anything. I mean it.
I will.
Another lie.
I dropped the phone and closed my eyes, trying to will warmth into my body through sheer stubbornness. It didn't work. It never worked. The cold would fade eventually—it always did—but until then, I was trapped in this strange space where my body functioned but didn't feel like mine.
Somewhere above me, footsteps moved across a ceiling. Somewhere down the hall, a door opened and closed. The hotel settled around me with all its anonymous sounds, and I lay there counting my breaths, trying not to think about Cinder two floors down doing the same thing.
Trying not to think about the way he'd looked at me in the ballroom before everything went wrong—that brief moment where I'd caught something in his expression that wasn't rejection or professionalism or careful distance.
Something that looked almost like want.
But it didn't matter what I'd seen or thought I'd seen. I had no business trying to talk to him at the club. It didn't matter that every instinct I had screamed at me to go to him, to check on him, to make sure he was okay after performing CPR in front of dozens of cameras.
Because I was dangerous.
And he deserved better than a man who could accidentally kill him just by losing control.
So I stayed in bed, wrapped in useless blankets, and let the cold do what it wanted. Let it sink deeper, let it lock my joints and slow my breathing and turn my skin to ice.
Let it remind me exactly why I needed to stay the fuck away from the one person I wanted most.
My phone buzzed again.
I didn't look at it.
Couldn't risk it being him.
Couldn't risk my resolve crumbling if he'd decided to check on me the way I was desperately trying not to check on him.
The cold pressed harder, and I welcomed it.
Because cold meant control.
And control meant Cinder stayed safe.
Even if it meant I stayed alone.