Page 68 of His Surrender

Time suddenly stops as the sounds of the lobby fade into the distance. The concierge answers a phone while the revolving doors spin behind me. Someone rolls luggage across the marble floor. It all disappears beneath the roar of my own heartbeat.

He’s asking her on a date.

Aubrey blinks. “Oh …” A faint blush creeps into her cheeks. “I …”

She looks surprised, but it seems like she’s actually considering it.

A violent surge of emotion slams into me so fiercely that it steals every coherent thought from my mind.

Jealousy, so raw and immediate that it’s almost blinding.

Mine.

The thought flashes through my head before I can stop it. The word horrifies me almost as quickly as it appeared.

She isn’t yours. She has never been yours. You made damn sure of that.

For an entire week, you barely looked at her, and now another man has simply walked through the space you left behind.

He smiles patiently, waiting for her answer.

Aubrey opens her mouth.

My body moves before my brain catches up. I don’t remember deciding to walk toward them. I only know that, suddenly, I’m there.

Close enough to see his smile falter and Aubrey’s eyes widen in surprise.

I wrap my hand around the stroller handle. “There you are.” The words come out calm, like they belong to someone else.

Aubrey’s expression changes almost instantly to confusion. “Dean …”

He glances between us. “You must be⁠—”

“I employ Aubrey.” The sentence leaves my mouth before I can stop it. The moment it does, I wish I could take it back.

A flicker of hurt crosses Aubrey’s face. It’s small but unmistakable. It hurts almost as much as seeing her laugh with another man.

He clears his throat, his attention shifting back to Aubrey. “So”—his smile is still there, though a little more tentative now— “my offer still stands.”

The lobby suddenly feels impossibly small. I don’t look at him. Every instinct I possess is focused entirely on Aubrey.

She doesn’t answer right away.

Instead, she looks at me for one suspended moment, and everything else disappears. It’s just the two of us.

Confusion lingers in her expression, but it’s mixed with something else… like hope.

It’s as if she’s waiting for me to explain why I just inserted myself into a conversation that had absolutely nothing to do with me.

My chest tightens.

Say something. Tell her you were out of line. Tell her you’ve been an idiot. Tell her you’ve missed talking to her.

Tell her⁠—

The words refuse to come. Fear wins. It always does.

Aubrey’s expression changes almost imperceptibly.