PEYTON
I drop my box of comfy clothes on the bedroom floor and yank the stupid suit jacket off. The fabric is slippery and cool against my overheated skin, and it smells like him—expensive and masculine and entirely too present. It fills my nose, settling deep into my lungs.
I check the label on the lining—100 percent silk, naturally—and fling the jacket on the bed. As instructed.
I pick up the box again and move it to my side of the walk-in closet. My reflection assails me from a full-length mirrored pane. I’m flushed, chest heaving, eyes wide and bordering on manic. I look like I’ve been chased through the woods. Or like I’ve been pressed against a window by a billionaire who smells really, really good.
I dive for the box of clothes. I need layers. A cushion between my skin and whatever madness possessed me downstairs.
I pull on a comfy pink bra, black leggings, and an oversized sage-green sweatshirt.
I hug myself, pacing the length of the closet.
What’s gotten into me? Why did I have to poke the bear just to see if he’d bite?
And oh, he bit.
I’ve spent the last two years with Matt learning to smooth my edges, to swallow my sharp retorts, to be agreeable and pleasant and small. And now, less than forty-eight hours after escaping that suffocating relationship, I’m picking fights with my fake husband in my underwear.
I provoked him. Taunted the beast and acted surprised when it snarled.
A knock on the bedroom door makes me jump a foot in the air.
“Peyton?” Liam’s voice comes through the wood, calmer now. Stripped of the edge it had downstairs. “May I come in?”
“Sure,” I call out, pacing to the closet door without fully stepping into the bedroom.
The door opens, and Liam steps inside. He’s loosened his tie, and his top button is undone, exposing the hollow of his throat. He looks tired. The arrogance that usually rolls off him in waves is dialed back to a guarded uncertainty.
He doesn’t come near me. Instead, he walks over to the bed and sits on his side, resting his elbows on his knees, hands clasped.
“I’m sorry,” he says to the floor. “I’m not even sure what happened downstairs. Or why I snapped like that. I shouldn’t have crowded you the way I did. I was out of line.”
I stay where I am, arms locked across my chest, watching him.
“You were a prick,” I say flatly.
Liam doesn’t argue. He doesn’t defend himself or make excuses. He looks up, the corner of his mouth lifting in a dry, humorless smirk. “I was.”
The acknowledgment disarms me more than any justification would have.
“But you provoked me.” He tilts his head, studying my face with genuine confusion. “Why?”
Ah. Good question.
I have no idea.
Why did I do it? To regain control? Because I felt small and naked and wanted to make him feel off-balance too? Or because some dark, reckless part of me craved to see what he’d do if I pushed?
I drop my arms, deflating. “I don’t know,” I admit. “But you… Something about you drives me up a wall. You get under my skin in a way I can’t explain or control.”
Liam watches me for a long beat then gives me that humorless smirk again. “Yeah, same.” And he goes back to looking at his palms.
The admission hangs between us, fragile and weird. We’re strangers bound by a contract and a mutual need, admitting to an attraction that wasn’t supposed to be part of the deal.
Liam flexes his fingers. “It’s been… a while for me,” he murmurs, like he’s confessing to a capital crime instead of a dry spell. “I haven’t been with anyone in over a year. Since my last relationship ended badly.”
I lean against the closet doorframe, keeping the distance between us. “The meme one?”