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“There’s a bottle in the fridge. Already made.”

I look back at her from the doorway. She’s lying in my bed, hair everywhere, wrapped in my sheets, watching me with an expression so unguarded it almost knocks me sideways—soft and amazed and a little scared, like she wasn’t expecting this and doesn’t know what to do with it.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey.”

“Stay right there.”

She smiles. “I’m not going anywhere.”

I pad down the hall to Ella’s room, scoop her up, warm the bottle, and settle into the chair by the window. She latches on and stares up at me with those big eyes, one tiny hand gripping my finger, and the city glitters through the glass behind her.

“I’m home, princess,” I whisper.

She blinks at me, sucking steadily, and I think about the woman down the hall in my bed and the baby in my arms and how absolutely none of this was part of my plan.

Plans are overrated.

Chapter Nine

Ryleigh

I wake up slowly, which never happens.

Since Ella arrived, my mornings start with a jolt—crying, fumbling, the frantic scramble to remember what day it is and whether there’s a clean bottle anywhere. But this morning, I surface gradually, like rising through warm water, and the first thing I register isn’t sound. It’s scent.

Him. Everywhere.

The pillow smells like him. The sheets are soft and warm, and they smell like him. There’s an indent beside me where his body was, still faintly warm, and even the air in this room carries traces of leather and clean skin and that mint thing he has. I press my face into his pillow and breathe.

Then I remember why I’m in his bed, and my whole body flushes hot.

Oh.

Oh, we did that.

His mouth on mine. My hands in his hair. The way he carried me down the hall like I weighed nothing, the way he laid me down and looked at me—really looked, like he was memorizing something—before he even touched me. His voice against my skin saying my name like a word he just learned. The slow, patient, devastating way he took me apart until I forgot my own.

I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling, and my heart is hammering.

What does this mean?

Are we together? Is this a thing now? Was last night a one-time event brought on by wine and proximity and the relief of him being home? Do I go back to the guest room tonight, or—

My brain cycles through scenarios fast enough to make me nauseous. Every romantic experience I’ve had in the last five years has ended badly. Guys who stuck around for a few weeks and then didn’t. One who borrowed money and disappeared. A pattern so consistent it might as well be a personality trait: Ryleigh picks men who leave.

And Alexei is a professional athlete who lives in a penthouse and has women lining up for a chance to exist in his orbit. I’m a twenty-four-year-old with no degree, no savings, and a baby that isn’t mine.

But then I think about the way he whispered “stay right there” when he got up to feed Ella. The way he kissed my temple. The way he said “life-altering” and meant it.

I think he meant it.

I press both hands over my face and make a sound somewhere between a groan and a laugh.

From down the hall, Ella cries.

Reality. Right. I’m still a person with responsibilities, even if I did just have the best night of my life.