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Gage ran his hand through his wet hair, his norhtness round his eyes, that look of worry presentsecond thoughts, are you?’

‘Never’

He s she’d ever seen The chill dissolved as she armed from the inside out The mere memory of his smile made every day better Even the ones where even the music turned up too loud at ho The days when her in-spiked iced tea for company

Gage cupped her jaw Dropped his lips to hers His entle shehis wet Henley She needed

Once they were married they could find a hotel, make love in a proper bed like they had a feeeks before, when they’d sneaked into the guesthouse on his parents’ property It could have been the Waldorf the way he’d treated her like a princess on the crisp, white sheets A flush of desire flooded through her at theover hers How he’d filled her, body and soul She’d cried in his arms because he’dhad seemed broken

His tongue touched hers and she threaded her fingers through his hair as they deepened the kiss She needed hiain, craved it in a way she could never explain He was her everything, the only man she ever wanted Soon no one could stop theh her, the realisation that in a e Caron

He stopped, wrenched away fro Everything plunged into ht as the torch was shut off ‘Wha—’

Gage pressed his finger against her lips Behind hiht flickered, a brief flash in another part of the building The scrape of so in her chest like drue’s breath caressed her ear ‘Someone’s here’

His warmth had left her She didn’t knohere he was, but he wouldn’t leave her alone Not ever She flinched at a rustling sound nearby As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw his into his pack

‘Hide,’ he whispered, his voice like aon the roof above them

‘It ht not be my father’

‘Can’t take that chance’

‘What about you?’

She could barely make out the shake of his head ‘You take the oet there Now up’

She looked into the black, ominous rafters above her and hesitated

‘You scared?’ Gage asked

Terrified But his words lit a fire in her belly After they’d first h an ivy-covered hole in the wall that separated the Chevalier and Caron family estates, he’d ask that whenever she hesitated She’d never backed down fro they hadn’t bothered her a bit, even when they had

‘It’s just like clie’s face was hidden by the darkness but brittleness cracked in his voice, telling Eve just how scared he was too Her ain

‘I remember’

She’d never forget sitting in those branches, looking down at the world as if one day they could bend it to their every whim Her irl was up a tree, especially with a filthy Caron But with Gage anything had sees had been Up there, in their world of fantasy, trying to shut out real life and touch the sky, had been the place her childhood crush had turned into full-blown love