Page 94 of The Marriage Clause

Not the ring.

Not the kiss on the arena steps.

This.

Paint under my nails.

Salt in the air.

Sun on my skin.

The sea just beyond the terrace.

And the strange, terrifying realization that France isn't making me fall in love.

It's reminding me that I'm still here.

Chapter Sixteen

EVERETT

I'm awake before the sun.

Not because I'm rested.

Because I'm not.

Because sleeping beside Aria without touching her is its own specific kind of torture, and sometime around three in the morning I gave up pretending otherwise.

I slipped out of bed carefully and left her sleeping in the white sheets, one arm tucked under the pillow, hair fanned across it like she belonged there more naturally than I ever have. Now I'm standing barefoot in the villa's kitchen in a pair of black lounge pants, waiting for the espresso machine to finish hissing while dawn turns the windows pale blue.

The villa is still quiet.

Just the sound of the sea somewhere beyond the terrace and my own thoughts, which are worse.

I should not still be replaying last night.

Aria in that tiny blue bikini, climbing out of the pool under moonlight like she was trying to end me on purpose. Water sliding down bare skin. Wet hair slicked back from her face. The line of her throat when she tipped her head to the side and wrung it out. The exact shape of her waist when she reached for the towel. The fact that I watched the whole thing from the study through the glass-paned French doors like some kind of starving man pressing his face to a bakery window.

The villa is too open. Every room bleeds into the next—the study sits just off the main living area behind those damned glass doors, and from inside it I can see half the house. The kitchen. The terrace. The stretch of pool if I angle left. Even upstairs offers no real distance when I can hear her footsteps on the tile below.

A terrible setup for a honeymoon.

A worse one for me.

My phone buzzes on the counter.

Everly.

Of course.

I answer with, "It's six in the morning in France."

"And good morning to you too, sunshine."

I pour espresso into a white cup. "What do you want?"

"I'm checking on my favorite newlyweds."