Something like panic fisted her heart, squeezing to the point of pain.
“Done with me already?” It was supposed to be a joke, but it held no levity. The symbolism of it was a fissure in her heart, growing wider by the second.
He turned his head toward her on the pillow. “I know you don’t like it. I saw your face when you opened it.”
Shame washed through her. She’d been a total bitch to him after the intensity of what had happened between them that last day at her place. Being spanked had pushed her to the physical brink, made her more vulnerable than she’d ever been, and she hadn’t been able to process the emotional fallout. Or the inescapable connection that had sprung up between them. From the second Wes had pulled her into his arms and held her while she cried, she’d known something monumental had shifted between them. Something she couldn’t undo. And so after she’d used him, slaked her need for punishment, she’d discarded him without explanation. Pushed him away with brutal efficiency, intentionally hurt him in an attempt to avoid dealing with the shift in their relationship.
And still he’d shown up at her door to help her.
“I was just...surprised.” Terrified. Desperately happy.
“Uh-huh.” To her amazement, he sounded amused, not offended. “I’ve got something for you.”
Her shriek of shock turned to a laugh as he rolled his big body on top of her, before bringing her along for another half turn. When they were done, he’d usurped her side of the bed, and she was on top of him.
Planting her knees in the mattress on either side of his torso, she pushed herself up so she was straddling his stomach. The expensive ring clattered against the end table as he dropped it there before lowering his hand to the drawer pull and tugging it open. “Can you grab that red box for me?”
Vivienne leaned slightly to the side, her gaze snagging on a red velvet ring box tucked against the back corner of the drawer. Her fingers shook as she reached for it, turning it over in her hands, avoiding the next step.
“Open it.”
Swallowing back her fear, Vivienne complied. The hinges were tight, and the box snapped open. For a moment, she thought her heart had stopped.
“Wes...”
A small diamond was set in matte white gold that reminded her of vines. It was like nothing she’d ever seen before. Too modest for a man of Wes Brennan’s current means, too thoughtful for a stand-in ring for this sham of a wedding, too perfect for any of that to be a mistake.
“It’s yours.”
The wording struck her as odd, ringing an alarm bell deep in her bones.
And she knew. Without question. That this ring was hers. It had been intended for her all along.
Her chest felt tight, crowded with emotion, as her gaze found his.
“You were going to propose?”
His embarrassed grin sent her heart careening into a free fall. “I mean, one day. Once I’d made something of myself.”
“I told you I didn’t care about that.”
“Because you grew up with a father who was a named partner of a corporate law firm. My mom was trying to support two kids and a raging drug habit as a grocery store cashier. When she bothered to show up for work, that is. And I didn’t know how to make you understand that I needed to be able to provide for you, not because you couldn’t, but because not being able to would make me too much like him.”
His dad. Wes had described him as a low-budget con man who only showed up when he needed money, who only called when he needed bail.
Wes’s self-recriminating laugh broke her heart as he took the little box from her numb fingers. “When I bought this, I didn’t think this moment would be so far in the future.”
Then, before Vivienne could even fathom what he was doing, he lifted her hand and slid the ring onto her finger.
I, Wesley James Brennan, take you, Vivienne Amelie Grant...
She replayed the vow he’d made her at City Hall in her head, his voice solemn and deep, as she stared down at her hand and the unique, perfect ring that completely eclipsed the generic princess-cut diamond she’d worn earlier.
Vivienne leaned forward, bracing her forearms on his chest so she could catch his mouth in the kind of kiss they hadn’t shared in a very long time. One that lacked the crackling heat and promise of deep, drugging pleasure. One that, instead, promised something far more profound and lasting than physical pleasure.
As if he’d sensed the difference, there was a question in Wes’s blue eyes when he opened them, and the difference in the way he was looking at her gave her chills.
Wes lifted his hand, his fingers tracing the curve of her cheek. “Viv?”
“Yeah?”
“The last time we were together, when you wanted to be spanked?” His fingers stilled against her face. “Was I...was I not giving you what you needed before? Would you have stayed if the sex had been dirtier? More adventurous?”
The sheer vulnerability of the question was enough to rip her heart out of her chest, to break through the wall of bravado and ice she’d constructed to keep it safe after she’d driven him away six years ago. The layer of shame that kept her from admitting how desperately she wanted this fake marriage to be real. The bone-deep knowledge that she still loved him. Dirty, sweet and every which way in between.
“You’re enough for me, Wes. Just this. Just us.”
He always had been. Always would be.
And to prove it to him, she leaned forward, pressing a kiss to his
