Chapter 64

Cassian held his hands up again. "Alright, alright.Don't bite my head off. I'm just saying, if this isn't just another PR stunt and she's actually your wife-wife,then I should get to know her. She's gonna be part of your life, which means she's gonna be part of mine."

Ashton didn't respond. His silence gave Cassian room to keep digging.

"So, yeah. I asked. Prodded a bit. And... I gotta be honest, man, I don't think she feels the same about you."

Ashton stilled.

Cassian pressed on. "She didn't seem to remember Florence. Or Eindhoven. At least, not the way you remember them."

The silence stretched.

Ashton didn't flinch, didn't blink, didn't react at all.

But Cassian had known him long enough to spot the way his shoulders lowered just a fraction.

"You didn't tell her, did you?" Cassian asked, more gently now.

"Tell her what?"

"That you love her."

Ashton turned away without answering.

He walked to the window.

The skyline pulsed under him, this city he'd once sworn off.

He'd come back anyway.

For her.

"I haven't," he said finally.

"Why the fuck not? If I like a girl, I tell her. 'Oi, be my girlfriend. Done. If I'm dumb enough to want to marry her-God forbid-I'll just say it. But you? You've been circling her like a damn border collie. You, of all people. Mr 'You're fired' before the coffee's cold.Now you're moving like every step migh blow up."

Ashton finally turned. "If you were carrying a fifteenth-century Flemish reliquary, one-of-a-kind,irreplaceable, would you be sprinting with it?" He let that sit for a beat. "Didn't think so."

Cassian groaned, dragged a hand down his face."Jesus.Mirabelle's not a fragile relic, Ashton. She's a woman.A pretty tough one at that. You're acting like she'll crack if you breathe too hard near her."

"| don't want to scare her off." Ashton's voice dropped lower, rougher. "She's not ready. Not yet."

Not until he'd erased Rhys Granger from every inch of her life.

His fingers curled against the desk.

The same fingers that had once skimmed her body.

The same ones that had memorized the curve of her waist, the softness of her thigh, the exact moment she'd stopped pulling away.

Now they twitched like they wanted to smash something.

Preferably Rhys's jawbone.

Cassian looked at him sideways. "You planning on waiting forever?"