The grandfather clock in the hallway strikes three times, each chime echoing through the house like an accusation.
You're not sleeping. You're not sleeping. You're not sleeping.
I stare at the ceiling of my childhood bedroom, counting the glow-in-the-dark stars Father helped me stick up there when I was seven.
Twenty-three years old and still lying beneath a constellation of my father's love, while down the hall Preston snores. The sound carries through the walls—a wet, rhythmic assault on consciousness that makes me understand why people commit murder.
My throat feels like I've been gargling sand.
The image of Jaxson's salute from earlier burns behind my eyelids every time I blink. That lazy two-finger gesture that said he knew exactly whose fantasy he'd walked in on. The memory makes my skin prickle with heat and shame in equal measure.
I swing my legs out of bed, bare feet hitting the cold hardwood.
The house settles around me with familiar creaks and sighs, the sounds of my childhood wrapped in darkness and complicated adult disasters. I pad down the stairs in my sleep shorts and tank top, navigating by memory and moonlight.
The kitchen gleams in silver shadows, all marble and stainless steel turned monochrome. I fill a glass with water, and drinking it down in desperate gulps like hydration might wash away the taste of my own stupidity.
Moving in here was monumentally idiotic—a masterclass in self-sabotage.
Preston treats the estate like his personal territory. Jaxson prowls the halls like a beautiful predator. And me caught between them like a moth that can't decide which flame to throw itself into.
The walk back to my room takes me past Father’s study. The door stands open, moonlight spilling across the Persian rug like an invitation.
The empty leather chair behind his desk looks abandoned, lost without his presence to give it purpose. My feet carry me inside before my brain catches up, drawn by the gravitational pull of grief and nostalgia.
I sink into his chair, running my fingers along the worn leather arms where his hands used to rest. The mahogany desk stretches before me, papers still scattered across its surface like he just stepped out for coffee and might return any moment.
The moonlight transforms everything into a museum exhibit.
Here lies the workspace of Richard Sloan, father, businessman, master manipulator even in death.
"Can't sleep?"
The voice comes from the darkness in the corner, smooth as aged whiskey and twice as intoxicating. My heart performs a full cardiac arrest as Jaxson materializes from the shadows, stepping into the moonlight like he's been waiting there all along.
He's shirtless, because apparently shirts are against his religion past midnight, wearing only black pajama pants that hang low enough to showcase the carved lines of his hips.
A glass of whiskey dangles from his fingers, the amber liquid catching the light.
"Jesus Christ, Jaxson. Were you just sitting there in the dark like a serial killer waiting for victims?"
"I was here first, actually. You're the one trespassing in my brooding session."
He takes a sip of whiskey, watching me over the rim.
"Though I suppose insomnia is contagious in this house. Tell me, is it Preston's snoring that drove you out, or just the crushing realization that you haven't had a real orgasm in the two years you've been with him?"
The crude assessment hits me like ice water to the face. "You're disgusting…"
"I'm observant." He moves closer, each step deliberate and predatory. "And you repeat yourself."
The glass of water leaves my hand before I consciously decide to throw it and the liquid arcs through the air in a perfect trajectory, hitting him square in the chest.
Water cascades down his torso, tracing the defined lines of his abs, pooling in the waistband of his pajama pants. I watch, hypnotized, as droplets travel paths I want to follow with my tongue.
"Feel better?" he asks, not even flinching as water drips from his chest onto an antique rug.
I shoot up from the chair, needing distance, needing escape, needing anything other than to stand here watching water make his skin glisten in the moonlight. But he moves faster, cutting off my exit route.
His hands land on either side of me, palms flat against the desk, caging me between his arms and the mahogany surface.
"Three months, princess." His voice drops to that dangerous register that makes my internal organs rearrange themselves. "Tick tock."
When he leans in, for one heart-stopping moment I think he's going to kiss me. But his mouth travels past mine, hovering over my throat. Not touching, just breathing against my pulse point.
Each exhale sends shivers cascading down my spine, my body responding to his proximity like a tuning fork struck by lightning. The not-touching is worse than if he'd grabbed me.
This deliberate restraint, this careful control… It's torture wrapped in a promise of what he could do if he wanted to. My hands come up to shove him away, palms connecting with his wet chest.
The contact burns through me like touching a live wire. "Get away from me."
I try to sidestep around him, but his hand shoots out, catching my bicep. His grip is firm but not painful, just enough pressure to stop my escape.
"You don't really want me to leave, do you?" His thumb traces a small circle against my skin, and that tiny point of contact threatens to short-circuit my entire nervous system. "If you did, you wouldn't have come down here dressed like…"
I wrench away from him with enough force to send myself stumbling backward into the desk. Papers scatter, and a folder tumbles to the floor, documents spilling across the rug.
We both freeze, staring at the mess. His eyes meet mine, and for a moment the mask slips. I see raw hunger there, mixed with frustration and that same twisted want that's been eating me alive for seven years.
Jaxson steps forward, closing the distance again. His hand comes up to cup my face, thumb brushing my cheekbone with unexpected gentleness.
We're so close I can taste the whiskey on his breath, feel the heat radiating from his still-wet skin. His mouth hovers over mine, a question and a challenge and a promise all at once.
I stop breathing. Every cell in my body screams for him to close the distance, to end this torture, to finally give in to what's been building between us since we were teenagers.
My lips part involuntarily, ready for impact, but he pulls back abruptly, dropping his hand like I've burned him. The absence of his touch feels like losing a limb.
"Sweet dreams, Harper," he says, voice rough with whatever he's holding back.
Then he's gone, disappearing into the shadows of the hallway, leaving me gasping against my father's desk like I've just run a marathon.