Sunlight, thick and golden as honey, slanted through the tall arched windows of the bookstore, illuminating motes of dust dancing in the air. It was a painter’s light, the kind that made everything look soft and holy. A profound and damning irony, Chloe thought, given the decidedly unholy things she had done in its path just hours before.
She woke slowly, a delicious, bone-deep ache settling into her hips and thighs. The first thing she registered was the scent: the sharp, clean tang of fresh paint, the comforting musk of old paper, and underneath it all, the warm, masculine scent of Liam’s skin. He was still asleep, his arm slung possessively over her waist, his breath a steady, warm puff against her hair. She was cocooned in his heat, tangled in the scratchy wool blanket they’d pulled from a display crate, her naked skin flush against his.
A memory, vivid and searing, flashed behind her eyes: his hands in her hair, her back pressed against a shelf of first-edition poets, the frantic whisper of his name a prayer on her lips. They had moved from the shelves to the floor, a clumsy, desperate tangle of limbs on this very blanket, their bodies slick with sweat, the world outside ceasing to exist. It had been raw and elemental, a storm she hadn’t realized was brewing inside her until it broke. It was everything she had secretly craved and never allowed herself to want.
She turned carefully in his hold, her movements slow and deliberate, not wanting to wake him. She needed a moment to just look at him, to absorb the reality of this man in her space, in her life. In the morning light, the hard lines of his jaw were softened, a day’s worth of stubble shadowing his chin. A dark lock of hair had fallen across his forehead. He looked younger, more vulnerable than the capable, confident man who commanded the respect of an entire town. A fierce, protective tenderness swelled in her chest, so potent it stole her breath.
And then, like a plunge into icy water, reality crashed in.
Bennett.
His name was a shard of glass in her mind. Bennett, with his kind eyes and his steady, dependable love. Bennett, her fiancé, who was a hundred miles away in the city, probably drafting a legal brief and thinking about which shade of ivory their wedding invitations should be.
The tenderness in her chest curdled into a cold, heavy knot of guilt. She had betrayed him. Not just in a moment of weakness, but in an act of wild, selfish abandon that had felt more real than anything in her life had for years.
Liam’s eyes fluttered open, the blue of them startlingly clear and deep. He blinked once, twice, a slow, lazy smile spreading across his lips as his gaze focused on her. It was a smile of pure, unadulterated satisfaction, and it lanced straight through her.
“Morning,” he murmured, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that vibrated through her. He tightened his arm, pulling her closer until her nose was buried in the warm curve of his neck.
“Morning,” she whispered back, the word catching in her throat.
He pressed a soft kiss to her temple. “You okay?”
The simple question was her undoing. She wasn’t okay. She was shattered. She was euphoric. She was a terrible, awful person. She pulled back slightly, creating a sliver of space between them. “Liam, we…”
The smile faded from his face, replaced by a look of sober understanding. He knew. He knew what was coming. He sat up, dragging a hand through his hair and giving her the decency of not looking away. The blanket pooled around his waist, revealing the sharp lines of his chest and shoulders, dusted with dark hair. Her body reacted before her mind could, a traitorous thrum of heat low in her belly.
“Last night…” she began, her voice strained. “It was… a mistake.”
The word felt like a lie the moment it left her lips. It hadn’t felt like a mistake. It had felt like a homecoming.
Liam’s jaw tightened, but he nodded slowly. “I know.”
“It can’t happen again,” she pressed on, the words tasting like ash. She needed to say them. She needed to erect a wall between the sacred, profane beauty of last night and the cold, hard reality of this morning. “I’m with Bennett. I’m getting married.”
Each word was a nail in the coffin of whatever this was. She watched his expression, searching for something—anger, disappointment, relief—but his face was a careful, guarded mask.
“I know that, Chloe,” he said, his voice quiet but firm. “I never forgot it.”
The implication hung in the air between them: and you did it anyway. He was right. He hadn’t pushed, hadn’t coerced. She had met him halfway, step for step, until they were both falling.
“We have to work together,” she said, her tone becoming more frantic, more desperate. “To save the store. We have to be able to… to be professional.”
“We will be,” he promised, but his eyes told a different story. His gaze dropped to her mouth, and for a heart-stopping second, she thought he was going to kiss her again. The air crackled, thick with unspoken things. The line they had irrevocably crossed wasn’t a chalk mark on the ground; it was a canyon, and they were both standing on the same side, looking back at the life she was supposed to be living. This promise was a lie, and they both knew it. It was a flimsy shield against a desire that now had a name, a taste, a memory.
A shrill, electronic ringing cut through the tense silence. Chloe jumped, her heart leaping into her throat. Her phone. On the counter by the cash register, where she’d left it last night.
The screen lit up with a smiling picture of her and Bennett, taken last spring in a park full of cherry blossoms. The name glowed beneath it: Bennett ❤️.
Her blood ran cold.
“You should get that,” Liam said, his voice devoid of emotion. He stood up, completely unselfconscious in his nudity, and began pulling on his jeans from the night before.
Chloe scrambled for her clothes, her fingers fumbling with the buttons of her blouse. She snatched the phone on the fourth ring, her voice a reedy, unnatural imitation of itself.
“Hey! Hi.”
“Hey, beautiful,” Bennett’s voice, warm and familiar, filled her ear. It was the voice of home, of safety, of her future. And it felt like an accusation. “Did I wake you? You sound sleepy.”
“No! No, I was just… up early. At the store.” She glanced at Liam, who was now pulling his t-shirt over his head, his back to her. Every muscle in his body seemed tense. He was a living, breathing testament to her lie.
“Of course you were,” Bennett said with an affectionate chuckle. “Working hard. That’s my girl. I was just calling because I got the proofs from the caterer. Listen to this: pan-seared scallops with a saffron risotto, or a duo of beef tenderloin and lobster tail?”
Scallops. Lobster. The words sounded foreign, like they were from a different language, a different universe. Last night, her world had been reduced to the taste of Liam’s mouth and the scent of old books.
“Oh,” she said, her mind a complete blank. “Um, they both sound… good.”
“I’m leaning toward the duo. Seems more celebratory, you know?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “And I spoke to the string quartet. They can play that Vivaldi piece you love for your walk down the aisle. I’m picturing it now, Chloe. It’s going to be perfect. Our whole life is going to be perfect.”
Our whole life. The phrase landed like a physical blow. Guilt, sharp and suffocating, rose in her throat. She felt Liam’s presence behind her, a solid, silent weight. He wasn’t moving. He was listening. He was a party to this deception now, whether he wanted to be or not. The secret was no longer hers alone. It was theirs.
“Bennett, I…” she started, but she had no idea what to say. I’m sorry, I just slept with another man in the bookstore I’m supposed to be saving?
“What is it, honey? You sound distracted.”
“No, I just… I have a painter here. Early,” she lied, the words coming with a horrifying ease. “It’s loud. Can I call you back later?”
“Oh, of course. Just wanted to check in. I miss you. Counting the days until you’re back in the city for good.”
“Me too,” she whispered, the lie a venomous thing on her tongue.
“I love you, Chloe.”
The chasm of her guilt opened wide, threatening to swallow her whole. She squeezed her eyes shut. “I love you, too,” she forced out.
She hung up and the silence that rushed back in was heavier, more profound than before. She stood frozen, her back to Liam, the phone clutched in her white-knuckled hand. She couldn’t bring herself to turn around.
She heard him move, the soft scuff of his boots on the worn floorboards. He stopped just behind her. She could feel his body heat, could smell the lingering scent of their night together on his skin.
“Chloe,” he said, his voice low and rough.
She flinched. Finally, she turned to face him. His blue eyes were dark with an emotion she couldn’t name—pity, regret, something else entirely. The easy charm was gone, stripped away, leaving something raw and exposed.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “You shouldn’t have had to take that call with me here.”
It wasn’t an apology for what they had done, but for its immediate, messy consequence. And in that moment, she understood. The secret wasn’t just a source of guilt; it was a bond. It was a live wire that now connected them, humming with a dangerous energy. What they had done last night had branded them both.
She just shook her head, unable to speak. Words were useless. They couldn’t undo the night before, and they couldn’t fix the lies of this morning.
He held her gaze for a long moment, the space between them charged with everything they couldn’t say. Then, with a final, somber nod, he turned and walked to the door. He paused with his hand on the brass knob.
“I’ll see you later,” he said, not as a question, but as a statement of fact. They were tied together now, by a bookstore and by a betrayal.
Then he was gone, the little bell above the door chiming his exit. Chloe was left alone in the sun-drenched, paint-scented bookstore, the silence roaring in her ears. The secret settled around her, a heavy shroud that was both terrifying and, in a dark, twisted corner of her heart, utterly thrilling. It was theirs, and theirs alone.