Something real and unguarded.
It hit differently than anything she’d said all night.
I didn’t answer.
Didn’t move.
Just stood there, watching her for a second longer than I should have before looking away.
CHAPTER 13
BEA
The pale glow of the late October sun pressing against the hotel windows should have been what woke me.
Instead, it was a six-foot-four menace shaking the entire side of the bed like the building was under immediate evacuation. Violent. Unrelenting. Irksome.
I groaned, half-buried in the sheets, swatting blindly at whatever part of him I could reach. My arm connected with something solid—his forearm, probably—but it didn’t slow him down.
“Bea,” Alois barked, his voice cutting clean through the last layer of sleep clinging to me. “Bea, wake up. We’re going to be late.”
The urgency in his tone snapped something in my brain. Adrenaline flooded in, hot and immediate. I bolted upright, throwing the covers off in a tangled rush and nearly tripping over my own feet as I lunged for my phone on the nightstand. My vision blurred, eyes still adjusting, thumb fumbling across the screen as I tried to make sense of the time.
“What time—” I started, my voice thick, sleep-heavy, panic already rising—and then I heard it.
Low. Rough. Completely unrepentant.
Alois was laughing. Not a polite chuckle. Not even close. A full, satisfied, deeply amused cackle that made something violent spark at the base of my spine.
I froze.
Slowly, I turned.
He was leaning back against the wall like he had all the time in the world, arms crossed, watching me unravel like this was the best part of his morning.
My phone screen finally came into focus. An hour before my alarm. Hours before we needed to leave.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I groaned, the words landing somewhere between disbelief and murder.
His eyes flicked to mine, sharp and bright, catching every ounce of irritation building in my expression.
“What in the fuck, Alois?” I planted my feet, crossing my arms tight across my chest, holding his gaze like I could set him on fire with it alone.
“We are going to be late,” he snickered, completely unfazed. “Didn’t you hear me?”
Before I could respond, he was already moving—closing the space, grabbing my wrist just enough to redirect me, steering me toward the bathroom. The tile was cold under my bare feet as I stumbled inside, the overhead light too bright, too early, too much.
This was so far past annoying I could taste it.
I reached for my toothbrush with more force than necessary, jamming it under the faucet, already plotting exactly how I was going to make him regret waking me up so early.
And the second the thought formed—he leaned into the doorway again. “Bea.”
I turned, toothbrush halfway to my mouth, foam already building as I pointed it directly at him like a shank.
“If you don’t tell me what is going on,” I babbled, words slurred and sharp around the toothpaste, “I am locking myself in here, and you can explain to security why I’m refusing to leave.”
His jaw tightened—not angry, amused. “Don’t fight me this morning,” he sighed. “Trust me.”