Page 50 of Cocky Brutal Sinner

I don’t want to think about that yet, though. I still have twelve more hours with Italy Beau.

I gaze up at his face, his features outlined in pale moonlight. His expression is as relaxed as I’ve ever seen it, no tension in his jaw or brow. His eyes are fixed on the distant movement of the waves, his lips slightly parted in thought. I know he’s not obsessing about numbers at the restaurant, or worried about his friends. The usual anxious forces in his mind are quiet for now, and it fills me with warmth.

Snuggling further into his chest, I inhale his woodsy cologne and the fresh linen scent of the sheets. His hot, solid body feels so sinfully good that I never want to get up. Even though Beau’s mind is a million miles away right now, I feel closer to him now than I ever have.

Then he says it. Exhales it, really, almost like he didn’t mean to. Like it slipped out on the breath he’s been holding for five years.

“I love you.”

A violent wave of emotion crashes over me, sending me reeling. It’s crushing and freeing at the same time, the world turned upside down with the three little words I’ve been craving for five years. I knew—deep in my heart, I knew exactly how Beau felt about me—but hearing them makes it real. Every cell in my body lights up with joy, and my lips curl into a satisfied smile.

I dare you, I want to whisper into his chest.

I dare you to mean it. I dare you to wake up tomorrow and still mean it. I dare you to mean it on the flight home, in Toronto, at Sunday dinner with Luke. I dare you to mean it where it costs you something.

The dare doesn't come.

It's the first one in five years I haven't been brave enough to say out loud.

Then it all comes crashing back.

Toronto. The rules. Our separate flights to Italy. Beau’s mother looking through me. Cat putting Giulia in my seat. The locked door at Copper Cup. The group chat I’m not in.

The life we can’t have.

In forty-eight hours, I’ll be back behind the counter at Copper Cup, pretending I don’t know what his mouth tastes like, and he’ll be at Terrace pretending I’m just his best friend’s little sister. Those three words will exist in a villa in Italy and nowhere else.

I know by the way Beau stiffens that he didn’t mean to say it. It slipped out, and he’s got to be regretting it now. Fuck, I can’t bear to hear him say he regrets it.

My throat burns as tears sting in my eyes. My heart starts racing—not the good kind, the kind that feels like the walls are closing in. Suddenly, my breath is caught in my lungs, which can’t expand, can’t inhale or exhale. Trapped. I’m trapped.

I don’t even realize I’m climbing out of bed until the sheets fall away from me, exposing my skin to the cool night. My chest heaves and my ribcage feels far too small. I need air. I need space, space between myself and those three words before they break me open completely.

“Brinley.”

My name hangs in the air, freezing me. It’s breathless and pained, like Beau’s trying to say so much in two syllables. I don’t turn around to face him, because I know if I meet his eyes, I’ll crumble.

“I’m sorry, Brinley,” he rasps. “I broke the rule. I didn’t mean to say it, I just got caught up. It won’t happen again.”

“But you did.” My eyes are wet, but somehow my voice stays steady. “You said it.”

And now it can’t be unsaid. It’s in the room. It’s in the villa. It’ll be on the plane home and in the café and in every single text and every stolen ten minutes behind a locked door. Beau loves me, and I can’t just pretend that I don’t know.

“Look at me,” Beau whispers. “Please, Brin, don’t run. Just look at me.”

I can’t deny him. I turn around and meet those warm brown eyes I’ve gazed into so many times. I can see everything—the hope, the terror, the way he’s braced for impact. He knows what he just did. He cracked the foundation we built everything on.

And he’s still looking at me like he’s begging me to say it back.

I can’t. Not because I don’t feel it—god, I fucking feel it. It’s the most true thing I’ve ever known. But I can’t say “I love you” to a man and then go home and pretend he’s nobody. I can’t hand him that and then watch him tuck it into a box marked “secret” alongside everything else we are. If I say it, I need it to mean something. I need it to change things, and I don’t believe it will.

My mouth is bone dry. I take a shallow, shuddering breath that barely fills my lungs. I don’t know what to say, what to do. I’m frozen in place, and I don’t see a single path I can take home.

Beau’s lips tighten into a firm line. I watch as his eyes go blank, closing up against me. He opens his arms and beckons me back to bed.

So I go. I let him pull me into his arms, his huge body cradling me like a shield against the world. Normally, this is where I feel the safest, the most content. Now, it’s like there’s a steel wall between me and the man spooning me. We couldn’t be closer, and we couldn’t be farther apart.

Neither of us sleeps well that night.