Page 89 of Fallen Crown

“Unexpected?” I smile and follow his lead. “Speak for yourself.”

He runs his knuckles from my shoulder down to my elbow, and it’s a move other men have made, but it’s never ignited my body the way his touch does. A shiver races through me, and when I glance up at him under my lashes, his pupils are dilated. He lowers his head, so his lips are next to my ear.

“Everything about you is such a fucking turn on,” he rasps.

“Everything?” I let my thumb glide across his cheekbone, at the edge of his beard. There is nothing about him I don’t find attractive. “Funny where we’ve ended up, isn’t it?”

“My life will be forever split in two. BMT and AMT.”

“Those sounds like sandwich combinations,” I tease, but my heart is thumping in my chest at his drunken sincerity. The intensity in his words and his gaze hits me in my gut.

“Something like that,” he says with a wry smile. “More alcohol.” He pours another shot and takes it. “You gonna get wild with me, Tucker?” He points his empty shot glass at me.

“Yeah,” I say because I promised myself I’d go with the flow, even if the idea doesn’t do anything to dissipate my anxiety over what we will or won’t be to each other after tonight. “I’ll get wild with you.”

He lets out a crow of delight and pours me a shot along with another one for himself. When I go to drink, he stays my hand.

“Wait, wait. Before I get too drunk,” he says, and he motions to my collarbone and to my thigh. “Did you look after both of those like you were told?”

“Yes, Dad.” I roll my eyes and take my shot.

“You can call me daddy, but we’ll save that for later.” He winks at me, and then he slides his hand into mine and drags me onto the dance floor.

The rest of the night passes in a blur of shots and shouted conversations and Brice slow dancing with me every chance I’ll give him, even when the music doesn’t warrant it. If my head was in a different place, his attachment to me would be cute.

When people start to leave to go back to their rooms, claiming early flights or overtiredness after the grueling ten days, Brice links his hand with mine, and we stumble back toward our hotel room.

Wren said she’d sleep in another room again to give us space if I wanted it. Part of me desperately wants to seize the alone time, and another part of me thinks lingering in this limbo with him will only make ripping the Band-Aid off later that much harder.

At the door to my hotel room, Brice stretches across the doorframe, pinning me against it, and he kisses me. Given his level of drunkenness, his restraint up to now has been admirable. He came close a few times to forgetting we were in the middle of a dance floor or at a party with lots of cameras, but he caught himself at the last second every time.

To avoid my own drunken mistakes, I switched to water many, many shots ago because I’m not-so-secretly a lightweight, but I’m not sure he noticed.

“Tucker,” Brice says, rubbing his nose against mine before kissing me again. “I want you to have my baby.”

“What?” My heart sinks to my feet as though it’s made of lead. I’d almost convinced myself he’d never ask, and if he never asked, there was a chance we could continue on, together. “Brice, you’re drunk.” If this is the alcohol talking, maybe I can ignore this conversation.

“No, no. Listen. I’m serious. It’d be perfect. We get along. You understand my life like no one else does. We’ve got lots of money so neither of us cares about any of that shit.”

“Brice.” When he tries to kiss me again, I turn my head to the side.

“Sorry. God. My timing is terrible. I don’t mean right away. You’ve got things to sort out, and you’re still grieving, and I probably sound like an absolute asshole right now. But I can’t stop thinking about it. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.”

His words are slurred, and when one of his hands slides around my waist to land on my abdomen, I wish the floor would open and swallow me. Anything to escape this conversation.

“I’m not the right woman for you.” I shake my head, and because of the alcohol coursing through my system, I can’t keep the tears that spring to my eyes in check. “I can’t. I don’t want to. Please don’t. Just don’t.”

“Tucker.” His voice is gentle. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Shit. I’m sorry. When I’m sober, this will sound a lot better and smoother.”

“I’m not the woman you need.” I sniff and straighten as I dig my keycard out of the tiny pocket on the outer thigh of my dress. Falling apart in front of him would lead to questions I don’t want to answer. His priorities are clear, and they aren’t about me.

“You’re exactly the woman I need. It’d be perfect, I swear. When I’m sober—”

“I won’t change my mind,” I say, and I let some of the old steeliness I used to show him creep into my voice and posture. “There are hundreds, if not thousands, of women in Bellerive who’d gladly have your baby. You don’t need me.” The keycard beeps on the door, and I turn the handle, backing into the room.

He tries to follow me, but I put my hand on his chest. “When you get back to Bellerive, you should start looking. If that’s what you really want, you should start looking for someone who can give that to you. It won’t be me.”

Then before he has a chance to argue or charm his way in the room and deeper into my heart, I close the door in his face. Any uncertainty I had about what I meant to him and what we could be is gone.