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The disciplined person in me warned caution, boundaries, limited exposure. The man—the part of me I'd suppressed for decades beneath ambition and control—wanted something else entirely.

"As long as this feels real," I said finally, the closest I could come to the truth I wasn't ready to acknowledge even to myself. "As long as what's between us matters more than what stands in our way."

She studied my face in the dim light, searching for something—reassurance, perhaps, or deeper commitment than I'd offered. Whatever she found seemed to satisfy her, because she nodded once, tucking herself more securely against me.

"Then I'll stay," she murmured, her lips brushing against my chest in a gesture so tender it ached. "For as long as you'll have me."

As she drifted into sleep, her breathing growing deep and even against me, I found myself confronting a truth I'd been avoiding since that first night at the wedding.

I was falling for Savannah Blake.

Not merely wanting her body, not merely enjoying her mind, not merely appreciating the challenge she represented.

But falling—the kind of emotional freefall I'd sworn never to experience again after Catherine's abandonment had nearly destroyed me.

The realization should have caused me to pull away, reinforce boundaries, reestablish the control that had defined my existence. Instead, I tightened my arms around her sleeping form, burying my face in her hair, breathing in the scent that had become as necessary as oxygen.

In that moment of unguarded honesty, I admitted what I couldn't yet say aloud: I would rather risk destruction with her than safety without her.

The recognition didn't bring peace, didn't resolve the complications still facing us, didn't erase the breach of trust that had occurred.

But it offered something I hadn't expected to find after four days of anger and betrayal.

A beginning. A possibility. A future worth fighting for.

Whether that future would bring healing or heartbreak remained to be seen. But tonight, with Savannah's heart beating steadily against mine, I allowed myself to hope for the former while preparing for the latter.

After all, control didn't mean avoiding risk. It meant calculating it, accepting it, managing it.

And Savannah Blake was a risk I was increasingly willing to take.

Chapter 14

Savannah

The morning light filtered through Lucas's bedroom blinds, painting stripes across his sleeping form.

I studied him in the gentle dawn—the silver hair tousled from sleep, the strong planes of his face softened, the body that had claimed mine so thoroughly last night now vulnerable in repose.

How had I gotten here again?

In his bed, in his life, despite the catastrophic breach of trust I'd created? The question haunted me as I carefully slipped from beneath his arm, gathering my scattered clothing from the floor.

I needed space.

Needed to breathe.

Needed to think without the magnetic pull of his presence clouding my judgment.

The bathroom door closed behind me with a soft click. I avoided my reflection in the mirror, knowing what I'd see—a woman coming undone.

A woman surrendering to patterns she'd promised herself she'd break.

The shower's steam created a cocoon of temporary escape as I tried to make sense of what was happening between us.

Last night had been unlike anything we'd shared before. Not just physically—though the raw intensity had bordered on punishing—but emotionally.

There had been anger in Lucas's touch, possession in his demands, but beneath it all, something that terrified me more than his controlled fury.