Bellamy steps across the threshold of the townhouse and suddenly, I’m on fucking tenterhooks, my skin tingling at the sight of her.

The last of the contractors left an hour ago. She was the one who walked through the penthouse with a cleaning cloth, making sure everything is gleaming. New paint and fresh carpet scents waft through the air. It could be a hotel, a movie set—but when Bellamy walks inside, it all feels real.

We’ve been apart for ten days. That’s the longest I’ve gone without seeing her since all of this started.

She looks into the massive living room and then to the kitchen, then back to the hallway that leads to the master suites. It took quite a bit of late-night planning to build two matching suites in that wing, but I only hired the best.

The best wasn’t good enough for her.

I know it the moment I see her standing at the edge of the foyer, a big tote bag over one shoulder and an oversized rolling suitcase behind her. All the new paint in the world, all the polished wooden surfaces of my furniture, can’t compete with her.

“Wow. This place is massive.” She looks at me with a little smile, hesitation in her big gray eyes. It wasn’t a long flight, but it seems to weigh on her. “No wonder you never called.”

I move closer. “You think the cell service is bad in a place this big?”

Something strange happens—the closer I get to Bellamy, the more she leans toward me. I can’t tell if she’s doing it on purpose or not. “It can’t be good.” Her eyes travel up over the high ceilings and back down to the brand-new carpet. “Not with all those waves ricocheting off the walls, and all that.” She shrugs. “You had a good excuse.”

I laugh out loud, the floor shifting beneath me. “Tell me, sweetness, are you actually upset that I didn’t call?”

“No.” Bellamy’s voice is light and casual, but her eyes dart to the side. She’s lying.

“You did not just lie to me.”

She reddens. “I did not. I don’t care that you didn’t call.” Bellamy takes a step closer, the wheels of her suitcase dragging on the carpet.

I hold up a hand. “You don’t have to.”

“I don’t have to what?”

“Come close,” I remind her. “There are no cameras here. You wouldn’t believe how much I spend on security to keep those vultures away.”

Bellamy stops in her tracks. Swallows hard. “Okay.”

“Are you all right?” I wasn’t entirely prepared for an emotional scene in the foyer, but with a surging horror, I recognize the signs. Bellamy’s chin quivers. Her eyes shine with tears—oh, my God, tears. She doesn’t want to be here. I take another step closer. I can’t help myself. “Listen—this is optional. We can call this off at any time.” It’s one of the biggest lies I’ve ever told. She could call it off, but I can’t. Not after that kiss.

She straightens her back and takes a steadying breath. “It’s not that.”

“What is it?”

“I’m just tired.” Tired seems to encompass the weight of the world for Bellamy. The weight of three years of law school. The weight of working a thankless job in a coffee shop, only to have her life upended by my totally unnecessary presence. The way we always, always, have to perform for the press, whenever we visit so much as the sidewalk in front of the building. “And I miss my friends.”

Then, to my utter shock, she bursts into tears.

I’ve never seen Bellamy cry like this.

I’ve seen tears come to her eyes, of course—but she lets go of the handle of her rolling suitcase and drops her head into her hands.

I have to touch her.

I can’t leave her standing like that.

For once, I don’t think about how it’ll look, how this move will lead to the next move will lead to the next press release.

I gather her into my arms and pull her close.

Christ, it feels good.

She’s lithe and gorgeous and solid against me, her shoulders shaking, and I feel invincible. I feel like I’m a hundred feet tall. I breathe in the scent of her shampoo, and every inch of me lights up at what that means—she’s close enough for me to take her into my lungs.

“It’s all right,” I tell her, because it’s all I can think of to say. “This won’t be forever. It won’t even be for very long.”

“Fuck that,” Bellamy says miserably against my chest, and my gut goes cold.

“What?”

She takes a big breath and steps back, and I see the wall come back up around her, brick by brick, until it reaches her face. Bellamy settles into a neutral expression, like you’d wear in a courtroom, and you’d never know she’d been crying, except for the redness in her eyes. “Nothing. Just—the moving has me shaken up.” She laughs. “It’s so stupid. We’re not even very far from the District.”

My head reels, still wrapped around that vulnerable fuck that. She must’ve meant something else. “We can have visitors.” I pat her on the shoulder, just so I can touch her. “You’ll have to say with me if we do that.”

“Stay with you?” She wipes one last errant tear away from the corner of her eye. “I am staying with you.”

“We can’t be in separate rooms, sweetness.” I keep it light, keep it a joke, but damn, if I don’t want her in my bedroom right now. The fact of her standing in the foyer, fully clothed, is driving me crazy. Even more so than in D.C. “That would blow our cover.”

She widens her eyes, looking serious. “We can’t have that.”

“No.”

The moment crackles between us, and then Bellamy seems to deflate. “It’s all right. I’m not planning on having any visitors. Not anytime soon.”

“I said we could have visitors. I’ll invite my own friends any time I please.”

Her face brightens, confusion setting in. Am I baiting her? Yes. Yes, I am.

“Well, until then...” Bellamy shrugs, a lightness to her movement. “Will you show me my new room?”