“Fine.”
He stepped inside and closed the door behind him, shutting out the storm.
Jayden looked at the bed. Looked at Dakota. Imagined the night stretching ahead of them.
This is fine, she told herself. Everything is completely fine.
And so, the lying continued.
THREE
She said fine. Her expression said something different. Yeah, well, he was lying to himself, too.
Dakota exhaled slowly.
This was a tactical error. Possibly his worst one yet.
He was in trouble. He’d already told her about his grandfather. About belief and trust and learning to let people be who they were. He’d held her hand through an emergency landing and told her they’d be okay. He’d looked at her across a dinner table and felt something give way when she talked about being lost in Tokyo and finally feeling like herself.
Nope, not sharing a bed with her. Not when she’d laughed and giggled and looked at him with those eyes that said she enjoyed his company . . .
She disappeared into the bathroom without another word. The door clicked shut. A moment later, water hissed through old pipes.
He changed into dry clothes—T-shirt, athletic shorts—then checked the room out of habit. Windows secure. Door locked.
Calm down.
The love seat mocked him from the corner. He tried sitting. Attempted to recline. His legs hung over the armrest at an angle that would leave him crippled by morning. He shifted, tried curling sideways, felt his spine lodge a formal complaint.
The floor, then.
He was eyeing the wooden boards, calculating the optimal position for surviving the night without need for a chiropractor, when the bathroom door opened.
Steam billowed out. And then Jayden emerged, wrapped in an oversized white robe that must have been hanging on the door. Her hair was damp, darker than before, curling slightly at the ends. The robe swallowed her—sleeves too long, hem nearly at her ankles—and somehow that made her look almost vulnerable. The sharp intelligence in her eyes hadn’t dimmed though. If anything, the vulnerability made it more obvious.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said as she started rearranging pillows. “I’m building a wall. See?” She stacked them down the center of the mattress—a barrier of cotton and feathers that wouldn’t stop anything but might preserve the illusion of propriety. “The Great Pillow Wall of Fiji. Very effective. Impenetrable, really.”
Despite everything—the attraction he shouldn’t feel, the vulnerability he couldn’t afford, the impossible situation they’d landed in—Dakota’s mouth twitched, wanting a smile. “Impenetrable.”
“Absolutely.” She smoothed the last pillow into place, then looked up at him. Waiting. “I’ve inspected hundreds of hotels. I know my pillow construction.”
He should say no. Should insist on the floor, on the love seat, on sleeping across the room if necessary. Every instinct told him proximity was dangerous.
But she was standing there with damp hair and an oversized robe and a smile . . .
And he was tired. Bone-deep tired. The emergency landing, the adrenaline crash that followed . . .
Yeah, he could probably drop onto the floor and sleep like a baby. But . . .
“Fine.” He heard his stupid mouth say. “But if you snore, I reserve the right to revisit the floor option.”
She smiled. “Deal.”
They settled on opposite sides of the pillow wall. The mattress dipped under his weight, and he felt her shift in response, adjusting to the changed topography. Close enough that he could hear her breathing. Far enough that the pillows maintained the separation.
She reached up, pulled the cord on the lamp. Darkness fell like a curtain.
“Good night, Dakota.”