Page 14 of Craving the Edge

The question was casual. Too casual. I felt my defences snap into place. “Not far.”

“Family close by?”

“Not really.”

The silence that followed was heavy. I waited for him to push, for the usual prying questions that blokes like him asked, expecting an answer because they were used to getting whatever they wanted. His scent filled the small space between us and I swallowed hard. I was close enough to notice the dark stubble shadowing the hard line of his jaw. Close enough to see the bare skin of his left hand where a ring wasn’t.

Instead of pressing, he just said, “Fair enough.”

He let it go, just like that. His lack of ego was so unexpected it shoved me off my axis. He saw the boundary I threw up and simply respected it. My gaze dropped to his hands, the knuckles bruised and laced with white tape. His voice, when he spoke again, was a low rumble that vibrated right through me.

“What about this place? You run it for Gary, or…?”

“I manage it,” I said, my gaze dropping to his hands again.

His knuckles were puffy, the skin stretched tight and faintly red over the bones. It was the kind of low-grade inflammation that came with spending hours punching things. I wondered what it’d feel like to have that hand tangled in my hair, the blunt force of him turning into a different kind of energy.

The thought sent a shiver down my spine and it was all I could do not to squirm.

“How long you been here, anyway?”

His voice pulled me out of the dangerous territory my thoughts had strayed into. I dragged my eyes up from his hands to meet his. “Four years.”

“Four years running the whole place?”

I gave a small shrug. “I manage the front desk. Schedules, memberships, the day-to-day stuff.” I chose my next words carefully. “Gary handles the business side of things. He’s a ‘big-picture’ kind of guy.” It was the most generous way I could describe a man who treated his own business like an inconvenience.

“A ‘big-picture’ kind of guy,” he repeated, the corner of his mouth lifting in a way that told me he knew exactly what I meant. “Right.” He looked around the cramped office. “You like it? Working here?”

The question caught me off guard and I almost laughed. No one ever asked me that. They just assumed I was part of the furniture.

I thought about the cracked pipes I’d had to patch, the late nights spent wrestling with spreadsheets Gary couldn’t be bothered with, the sheer force of will it took to keep this place from crumbling into a pile of debt and rust.

“It’s mine,” I admitted, the words out before I could stop them. “Not on paper and not in any way that matters to a bank….but it’s mine.”

I braced for the joke from a guy who probably owned penthouses and shares in fancy companies the world over. Instead, Declan just nodded, his green eyes fixed on my face with a look of genuine understanding.

He shifted, the leather groaning again. “Family in Melbourne?”

So he’d decided to press, sensing a chink in the ice wall. I thought of Carla’s bubbly messages from the other side of the world. Of a father I hadn’t seen in a decade. A mother who moved to Bali not long after I turned eighteen and forgot to call. A familiar hole opened in my chest.

“Not really.” The same answer as before. Take the hint, Walsh…

I saw the brief flash of curiosity in his expression before he smoothed it away.

“I get it,” he murmured.

And in that moment—in that small, quiet office—I saw a man beside me, not the boy on the billboards.

I realised, with a stab of terror, that Declan Walsh might not be the wanker I thought he was.

“Boyfriend? Partner?” A pause. “Husband?”

I stared at him, stunned.

A slow, lazy smile spread across his face. “I’ll take that as a no.”

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and the tiny space between us shrank to nothing. His gaze pinned me to the couch, all of his attention aimed directly at me.