Page 36 of Our Chaotic Love Affair

She hopped off my lap and stood staring down at me. I looked up, hoping she was just moving off my lap so I could stretch her out on the beach or maybe go back to my room. But judging by that look on her face, I was in no such luck. And that was a damn shame.

She pressed her fingers to her lips, like she was sealing something in or locking something away. “I can’t do this,” she said.

“I disagree. You were doing it quite well a moment ago.”

“Cash, I’m serious.” The warning in her voice killed any hope of finishing what we started. “We can’t do this if we’re going to work together. I need a proper agreement between us. Professional boundaries. Clear expectations. This could get messy so fast.”

I studied her face, looking for the version of this where she was wrong. I couldn’t find it.

“We’re also going to be family adjacent in four weeks,” she continued. “You’re going to be Melody’s brother-in-law. The uncle to her child.” She shook her head. “That’s not nothing, Cash. That’s permanent. And whatever this is between us isn’t permanent, so we shouldn’t let it complicate things that are.”

An ugly feeling settled over me. I recognized the sensation as discouragement, which was not an emotion I spent much time with. I didn’t get discouraged. I recalibrated and moved forward.

She was shutting it down. All of it. The trip. Whatever had been building since she arrived. She was being sensible and clear-eyed. And that was not great for me.

“You were right,” she said. “About me needing to start looking out for myself.” She gestured between us. “This is actually my first opportunity to do that. To make a decision based on what I need instead of what someone else wants.”

“And what do you need?”

“To not blow up my best friend’s family before it’s even started.” She met my eyes. No anger. Or sadness. “This thing between us has a lot of potential to be fun. And reckless.” A pause followed by a wince. “Definitely temporary. And we shouldn’t do that to Austin and Melody. Right?”

She was searching my face, looking for agreement. She wasn’t coming right out and asking for a commitment, but she was letting me know she wasn’t up for a fling.

I nodded. It was the right thing to do. I knew it was the right thing to do. Austin was my brother and Melody was about to be his wife and Cleo was the person Melody loved most in the world. She was the closest thing to a sister Melody had. It would be complicated by whatever was happening between us. Not the now but the after.

And there would be an after. I understood that as well as she did. But honestly, I didn’t give a single damn about Austin or Melody in that particular moment.

Something in her expression softened. She bent down and pressed a kiss to my cheek. It was a sweet goodbye.

“Goodnight, Lurch,” she said with a smile.

“Goodnight.”

She walked back up toward the house without looking back. I watched her go and felt the particular frustration of respecting someone’s decision when you would have preferred they made a different one. It was so hard not to argue my point. That was what I did. When I wanted something, I made it happen. I knew how to argue until I got what I wanted.

But I wouldn’t do that to her.

She held her own ground, set her own terms, and walked away from something she clearly wanted because she decided it wasn’t right. That was a kind of discipline I recognized and honored even when it was directed at me.

I kicked sand over the embers and grabbed the bucket to fill with water. I dumped it over, listening to the dying hiss. It was very symbolic. Any chance I had with Cleo died just like the fire.

When the fire was out and every last coal was covered in sand, I didn’t go inside immediately. I stood there and thought about what I’d actually done tonight. I’d invited a woman I barely knew to accompany me on the most consequential business trip of my career. A trip where the Rossi contract had every chance of ruining my standing within Bancroft Holdings. My entire professional future hung in the balance.

I might never be anything more than my father’s errand boy. The one he sent to clean up messes because he trusted me to do it without making new ones. That was the role I’d been playing. The role I’d accepted so completely I’d stopped noticing it had a ceiling. That was my relationship with him. Need something handled, call Cash. A brother fucked up, call Cash.

I looked up at the house. Several windows were lit from within. I could see the soft shapes of shadows moving behind them. Kent and Sylvie’s room. Melody and Austin.

Couples. They all had their own worries and their own history and their own private language of gestures and glances that I’d spent the whole evening trying not to notice.

I wondered what it was like to have that. A person on the other side of the door when you got home. Someone you could be totally honest with and they’d love you anyway. A family that looked to you as the head of the household and respected you for it.

I’d felt a storm building in me for a long time. Long enough that I’d stopped being surprised by it, just quietly skilled at keeping it contained. Work was the container. Being useful and indispensable to the Bancroft machine was how I pretended I didn’t long for what my brothers had.

But tonight Cleo had rocked something. She disturbed all the careful containment.

I headed inside. I heard Tiana, awake and unhappy about it, her cry muffled through Kent and Sylvie’s door. Sylvie’s voice, low and soothing, was followed almost immediately by a sound that was unmistakably a giggle. I was sure that was Kent doing something to break the tension of a midnight wake-up. I smiled before I knew I was doing it.

I slowed outside Cleo’s door. The light was off. I stood there longer than made any sense and thought about knocking. What would I say if she answered? She’d been clear and graceful and I’d agreed with her. Knocking on her door forty minutes after agreeing to leave her alone would be the least respectful thing I could possibly do.