I woke up tangled in sheets and Cain's arms, sunlight streaming through windows I'd forgotten to close. His breath was warm against my shoulder, one arm possessively wrapped around my waist.
Reality crashed in like cold water.
I'd slept with my boss. My morally questionable boss who was paying me to sabotage a wedding. My boss who I'd known for exactly four days.
"Stop thinking so loud," Cain murmured against my neck. "I can hear your regret from here."
"I don't regret it."
"Liar." But his arm tightened, pulling me closer. "You regret everything. It's your default setting."
"That's not fair."
"It's accurate." He pressed a kiss to my shoulder. "But for what it's worth, I don't regret it. Best mistake I've made in years."
I turned in his arms to face him. In the morning light, he looked younger, less dangerous. Almost human.
"What are we doing?" I asked.
"Complicating things unnecessarily." His smile was self-deprecating. "I'm good at that."
"We should probably talk about this."
"Probably." He traced patterns on my bare back. "Or we could have breakfast and pretend we're normal people having a normal morning after."
"Nothing about this is normal."
"No." His expression turned serious. "But it doesn't have to be complicated either. We're adults. We're attracted to each other. We acted on it. We can decide what it means or doesn't mean together."
"That's very rational."
"I'm a rational person." His hand slid up to cup my face. "Except where you're concerned. You make me want to do incredibly irrational things."
Before I could respond, his phone buzzed on the nightstand. He glanced at it and his expression went cold.
"What is it?"
"Security footage from your apartment building." He sat up, all business now, and pulled up the video on his phone.
I watched over his shoulder as grainy footage showed two men in dark clothes entering my apartment. Professional, efficient, wearing gloves. They searched systematically drawers, closet, under furniture. One of them held up my laptop, then set it back down.
"They weren't stealing," I said. "They were looking for something specific."
"Information." Cain's jaw clenched. "About the Whitmore job, probably. Someone wants to know what we're planning."
"Who?"
"That's what I'm going to find out." He was already texting someone. "Stay here today. Don't leave the penthouse. I'm increasing security."
"Cain, I can't just hide"
"You can and you will." His voice was steel. "Whoever broke in knows where you live.
They might know where you work, where you go, who you talk to. Until I figure out who's behind this, you stay where I can protect you."
"I'm not a prisoner."
"No. You're mine." He said it with such casual possession that my breath caught. "And I protect what's mine."
The territorial claim should've made me angry. Should've made me push back, assert my independence.
Instead, it made heat pool low in my belly.
"I need to call my mother," I said, changing the subject before I did something stupid like kiss him again. "She texted last night. She's worried."
Cain's expression softened slightly. "The study is soundproof. Use it for privacy."
My mother answered on the second ring.
"Raven Elizabeth Cross, you have exactly thirty seconds to explain what I saw on the internet before I drive to New York and drag you home."
"Hi, Mom."
"Don't 'hi Mom' me. A wedding? You crashed Damien's wedding?" Her voice cracked. "Baby, what were you thinking?"
Guilt twisted in my chest. "I was thinking he deserved it. After what he did"
"What he did was break your heart. That doesn't give you the right to break his life."
She sighed, heavy and disappointed. "Where is the girl I raised? The sweet, thoughtful daughter who would never hurt anyone?"
"She died when Damien texted her that she was too complicated to love." The words came out bitter. "You didn't see what those three years did to me, Mom. How small I made myself trying to be what he wanted. What his mother wanted. What everyone wanted."
"So you became this? Someone who destroys things out of spite?"
"I became someone who fights back."
Silence. Then, quietly: "I'm scared for you, Raven. This isn't you. This anger, this vindictiveness it's going to eat you alive."
"Maybe I want it to. Maybe I'm tired of being the good girl who gets walked all over."
"There's a difference between standing up for yourself and becoming the villain." Her voice broke. "Please, baby. Come home. Let's figure this out together."
I looked around the penthouse expensive, beautiful, empty of everything that mattered. Thought about Cain in the other room, planning strategy and checking security.
Thought about the Whitmore wedding in eight days, another life I was about to destroy for money.
"I can't," I whispered. "I'm in the middle of something."
"What kind of something?"
"The kind I can't talk about." I wiped at tears that shouldn't be falling. "I'm sorry, Mom. I'm sorry I'm not the daughter you wanted."
"You're always the daughter I wanted. That's why this hurts so much watching you destroy yourself and not being able to stop it."
We talked for another twenty minutes, her trying to convince me to come home, me making excuses about work and commitments and lies that tasted like ash. When I finally hung up, I felt hollowed out.
Cain found me ten minutes later, still sitting in his study with dried tears on my face.
"That bad?" He sat beside me, close but not touching.
"She thinks I'm becoming a monster."
"Are you?"
I looked at him at this man who'd hired me to sabotage weddings, who'd kissed me like he was drowning and I was air, who looked at me like I was something precious and dangerous all at once.
"I don't know anymore."
He pulled me against his chest, and I let him.
Let myself be held by someone who understood what it meant to cross lines you couldn't uncross.
"For what it's worth," he said quietly, "monsters don't cry after talking to their mothers."
"What does that make me?"
"Human." His hand stroked my hair. "Complicated. Messy. Real." He tilted my chin up. "And exactly what I need."
"You need a mess?"
"I need someone who understands that the world isn't black and white. That sometimes you have to do questionable things for good reasons. That survival isn't always pretty."
His dark eyes held mine. "I need you, Raven. Not in spite of your complications because of them."
God help me, I believed him.