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“Jesus, I’m getting weak.”

I’ve bought pizza for the woman who broke my heart. Ordering food is skirting dangerously close to caring, and I can’t have that.

Not with her.

10

JOLIE

I remain perfectly still as I listen to his long, slow breaths beside me.

Inhale.

Exhale.

How could he possibly be asleep when we’re this freaking close?

Okay, I gotta admit it was nice of Fabien to order the pizza, even thoughtful. However hard that is to say. Hiding somewhere deep behind that vicious, cold, vengeful exterior is still that kind and open-hearted boy.

Somewhere.

Under the sheets together, his scent overshadows anything else. He might be a big and muscular tower of a man now, but he still smells like the Fabien I knew.

Just a hell of a lot more... masculine.

The bed is too small. Far too tiny to accommodate both of us, and that means I can’t escape his presence even if I want to. It’s another cruel twist of the knife from the Castaways.

Fabien stirs.

Shit.

His breath suddenly shortens. Okay, so he hasn’t been asleep.

What’s he thinking?

We went to bed in silence earlier. That interaction on the balcony was the last time we spoke.

He remembered about the extra mushrooms.

As he moves, I try my best to shut my eyes and steady my own breathing and pretend, desperately, that everything is okay.

But then I feel him. His leg. It touches me. And, as quickly as our flesh makes contact, Fabien aggressively shifts away. The sheets ruffle. Lightning crackles through the air between us.

Okay, okay, okay.

The leg brush was an accident. Just an accident.

Wow, Jolie. What the hell is going on with you?

It’s like I have become fully aware – consumed – of everything about the man lying next to me. Each breath... the way his hair is pressed against his pillow... the shape of his body under the sheets... his warmth... his scent...

I have to freaking pull my ass back into check.

God, what is wrong with me?

Weirdly, Fabien is both a total stranger and yet so, so familiar. The longer I spend near him, the more the years melt away.

Stop this. Stop this. Stop this.