What the fuck are you doing, Merc?

I laid Willow on the bed like something fragile, something rare to behold. I peeled that silky sexy-as-fuck sliver of fabric from her body as if she were ripe fruit I couldn’t wait to sink my teeth into. I shed my clothes and came over her as if the thought of diving inside her warmth was singular and fundamental to being able to take my next breath.

She loves me.

I’d hoped it. Like a pussy, I’d prayed for it, even. But to actually hear it? That truth rumbled so goddamn deep inside me I felt the Earth split in two. Instead of apathy when other women have said it, I felt pure, undiluted elation. Like I was wide-awake, born again.

And I love her so goddamn much I am beyond reproach right now. If I wasn’t, I would let her go. I would hurt her now to save her later. I would do what needs to be done behind the scenes to protect her, to secure her financial future and leave her the hell alone.

I should have done it earlier. I beat her back to the room and I heard her come in. I watched as she strode to the bedroom oblivious to my presence in the dark. I listened to her shower. I waited for her, the lies all prepared. Thank you for your help, but I no longer need your services. Sitting in the dark, I practiced them over and over until I thought I could say them without choking. I even briefly thought of inviting Noah back to our suite and into our bed, fucking bastard that I am.

But then she was there, her aura wholly surrounding me. She brought this unfettered peace and tranquility with her into the room without even trying. And it broke me. My misery leaked out. The lies evaporated. I don’t even remember what I said when she dropped at my feet, looked up at me with those brilliant eyes of hers, and told me she loved me.

When she knowingly stopped me from telling her I was in love with her the other night, I was angry. Mostly I was hurt. But after today, I thought maybe it was fate. Maybe she was never meant to know how deep my feelings run or how I can’t even stomach the thought of touching another woman again who isn’t her. When she told me I was in, though, that was it. Game over. The idiotic thought I’d had of pushing her away vanished. She was officially mine.

But the fact still remains that professing our love only adds layers of complexity to this already convoluted mess and for once, I don’t know what to do about it. I had hoped today would clear Annabelle, but…fuck. Fuck.

It didn’t.

If Lia Melborne is to be believed, Annabelle was there. They were all there. Hell, they’re all as guilty as Annabelle in my opinion, yet no one came forward or did a goddamn thing. But it was my baby sister who…

Shit. I run a hand through my hair, letting my mind drift to earlier when I slid into Willow without a single barrier between us—no latex or false pretense or those fucking blockades she throws.

“Where are you?” Willow asks quietly, sliding her tiny hands over my cheeks.

The tender move snaps me back to her and I realize I’m hovering over her, lost inside this hell I’ve found myself submerged in. How will I live my life without her in it?

Unfathomable.

She’s waiting for me with such yearning on her absurdly beautiful face, my cock rages. “I’m home,” I spill truthfully, laying my cheek to hers. I gather her close, shove my face in her neck, and inhale her.

“Shaw,” she breathes. “I love you.”

Christ. Why do they call it falling in love when it feels like you’ve jumped out of a plane headfirst without a parachute? “Not possibly more than I love you, Willow.” Not possible.

I needed her with a desperation that bordered on wild. So I shoved away the sickening news, lined up my length, and sank deep, slowly making love to her until we were sweaty and our lips hurt from kissing. I treated each second with her as if it were my last. I feared it might be.

We ordered in, ate naked in bed, talked and kissed and touched. We made love countless times. I did anything she asked. Every kinky thing she wanted. Sweet-talked her into a few of my own. It was the most glorious night I’ve spent with anyone.

The pads of my fingers trace up and down her arm lightly so as not to wake her. She’s been asleep for hours, yet I’m lying here unable to close my eyes, wishing we could freeze ourselves into this place and time while the world goes on without us.

Sun spills around the curtains, its rays usually welcome. I love the sunrise. The dawning of a new day, new possibilities. But today I curse Mother Nature herself as unearthly panic thickens and multiplies. Tomorrow is almost here and with it brings a million questions I’m not ready to answer.

What the fuck am I going to do?

How am I going to get us all out of this mess unscathed?

Is that even a possibility?

Honestly, the answer is no. Every one of us loses here.

“Fuck, Annabelle. What have you done?” I mutter into the soundless room.

A knot forms in my throat. I can’t go there yet. Not yet. Instead, I focus on Willow. I listen to her light breaths, drowning in the perfect sound of her serenity. I let the warmth of her body snuggled against mine burrow into me so far, I’ll feel her for a lifetime. I memorize the feel of her fingers twitching against my chest and the unique scent of her I take in with each deep inhalation.

For the first time in my life, I feel heavy and vulnerable. The infamous Shaw Mercer is not invincible or impenetrable after all. The proof is sprawled on me, her hot pussy pressed tight to my leg, her knee tucked a little too close to my well-used cock. I actually tear up at the thought of not having this. Of not keeping her or waking up feeling as if I’ve finally found my place in life.

Pressing my lips to the crown of sex-and-sleep-mussed hair I leave them there. Wrapping my other arm around her, too, I find my eyelids too weighted to stay open.

Just a moment, I think. I’ll rest them for only a moment because I can’t waste a single second I have left with her in the haze of sleep.

I wake to pounding.

I pry open my eyes to find it fully light in the bedroom of our hotel. A glance at the digital clock on the stand to my right tells me it’s after nine. Shit. I did more than close my eyes. I dropped into oblivion.

Thud thud thud.

The dull noise comes from the door to our suite and irritation sets in. I was positive I put out the Do Not Disturb sign last night to avoid this exact thing.

Carefully, I extricate myself from Willow, who is still sound asleep, and grab my dress pants from the floor beside the bed. I shove one leg in first, then the other. I do up the zipper but leave the button undone. The knocking resumes but I pause, gazing at the love of my life. So sweet and innocent when she has that harpy mouth of hers closed.

She didn’t push me the rest of the night about my mood, but that’s only temporary. She will, likely the second she opens her eyes. Then what? How will I divert her this time without outright lying? And that I just can’t do. Lying will erode this fragile trust she’s placed in me, and I won’t do that no matter how tempting it may be.

With a sigh, I reluctantly leave her and make it to the door right as the loud noise resumes. I throw it open, not even bothering to check the peephole, sure it’s housekeeping. I’m preparing to bite an innocent’s head off when the face of my best friend appears in my vision.

“What the fuck? We aren’t scheduled to leave until noon.”

“This couldn’t wait.” He brushes past me, uninvited. Asshole.

I don’t want to deal with Noah right now. I don’t want to deal with what’s waiting for me back in Seattle, either. I want to crawl back into bed beside Willow, peel back the sheet covering her, and tongue my way down her perfect curves until I reach her center. I want her to wake up panting, clawing at my hair, begging me to let her come. I don’t want to leave and a big part of me wishes we never came here in the first place because at least then I could still be living behind a cloak of denial a little while longer.

Quietly shutting the door behind me, I follow Noah into the living room of my suite. “You could have called.”

He gives me a look of pure annoyance. “I tried your cell a dozen times. You didn’t answer. You think I wanted to get my ass out of bed this early?” Noah is an early riser. The only time he stays in bed past six is if he has a naked beauty twisted in his sheets. “I didn’t.”

I smirk. Yeah, I was right.

I spot my cell on the end table as I walk across the room but leave it. “Then why did you?” I ask sinking into the same armchair I was in last night where Willow told me she loved me.

Noah scans the room before he hands me a tablet. “Because you need to see this.”

“What?” I grab the device and swipe so the screen comes to life, and in under a second, I wish I’d never answered the door. My eyes are drawn first to the grainy picture, and while it’s not crisp, there is no mistaking what is going on in it. “What the fuck?”

I cut my eyes up to Noah’s to see they are hard as steel. “I’m sorry.” His tone is filled with repentance. The night this picture was taken flashes in clicks across my vision. I knew it. I fucking knew this would come back to bite me.

Swallowing the bile burning like the fires of hell up my throat, I drop my attention back to the short article that came out in this morning’s 7-Day. And the kick in the balls is that it’s right below a picture of my father reading to a class of preschoolers. An intentional play, clearly.

Motherfuckers. I am seething with fury.

“Is monogamy overrated?” I spit, scanning the black letters that seemingly mock me. It takes me less than three minutes to finish the asinine exposé that’s nothing but suppositions and lies. “What is this?” I toss the tablet to the sofa with disgust. “A goddamn witch-hunt?”

“Appears like it,” Noah responds, voice gravelly.

The gist of the brief bullshit story is that I cheated on Willow. And the picture they somehow got their hands on is certainly incriminating.

It shows Gina, the lovely waitress that served Noah and me that night, with her eyes squeezed closed and unmistakable ecstasy lining her face. Her fingers are cinched in my shirt, conveniently covering her bare breast from the side shot. Noah’s long fingers are wrapped around her hip and that’s all you see of him.

But you can see me plain as day. And the worst part? My fingers are holding her chin still and my lips are touching hers in a tender kiss as she rode out her orgasm.

Fuck. Me.

I didn’t participate in anything that night other than this simple, chaste kiss, but I might believe this drivel if I didn’t know the truth.

Willow might believe it, too, because while the picture is real, everything else in the article is a lie. And, of course, that’s likely the desired outcome, isn’t it?

I have so many goddamn questions, but the only question that matters is, “Who is responsible for this?”

I want to find them and crush them. This will kill Willow, seeing me with another woman this way. Especially after what happened at the party the other night with Lianna. What we have is still fragile. It needs to be nurtured. It needs time to grow and root and this…shit. This could blow what we’re building to bits if we let it and that’s even before the devastation of the other news I’ll have to eventually tell her.

Why does it seem as though the entire universe is working against us?

Noah plops onto the couch and throws an arm over the back. “There are a lot of candidates.”

True.

Restless, I push myself to stand and start pacing. My mind immediately goes to Mergen. He knows this would gut me in the worst possible way but not only will it hurt Willow, it could possibly hurt my father’s campaign. Would he do that to serve his own end game anyway? I wouldn’t put it past the bastard.

Then there’s Lianna. What’s worse than a woman scorned? Not much, in my experience. But how would she get this? If she had been there that night, I would have seen her, right? It sure is convenient timing, to say the least.

And of course, let’s not forget my father’s competition. Hell, anyone could have taken this and sold it to the 7-Day for a mint. It could have even been Gina herself setting us up, but why?

Fucking fuckety fuck. My father was worried something like this would happen from the beginning and I just gave Harrington live ammunition. I may as well have hand delivered the grenade with the pin pinched between my teeth.

Suddenly the screen on my cell lights up. I had set it to silent last night, unable to stomach the thought of talking to anyone after we left Annabelle’s friend. Noah reaches over and picks it up, eyeing me from his seated position. “Your father.”

Of course it is. I wonder how many times he’s called already. I shake my head and he shrugs and sets it back down. “You’re going to have to deal with him sometime, Merc.”

I ignore Captain Obvious, going straight into problem-solving mode. The picture is out there. As much as I’d like to think differently, there’s not a damn thing I can do about it now.

“We need to do damage control.” The first step being, how am I going to break this to Willow? If I thought there was a way I could sweep it under the rug so she’d never find out, I would. I’m not that stupid, though. Mergen will be all over her like flies on shit hoping this breaks us and he can thieve her out from under me.

“Do damage control for what?” a soft voice that does not belong to Noah asks.

Of course.

“Uh-oh,” Noah murmurs. I follow his gaze and stiffen when I see Willow and what she’s wearing. Her golden hair is still mussed and she has this satisfied, sleepy look on her stunning face. A fluffy white robe, cinched at the waist, is wrapped around her small frame and I just know she’s butt naked underneath.

My mind blanks.

“I thought you were asleep,” is all I can think to say.

She smiles. It blows my mind the same as every other time. “I heard voices.” Then she walks toward me. She saunters slow and sexy, but in my head, she may as well be stripping for me along the way. Her arm coils around my side when she reaches me and I release a pent-up sigh at having her plastered to my side. That lasts as long as it takes for her to ask again, “What damage control needs to be done?”

I look to Noah and simultaneously our eyes fall to the iPad. Willow being Willow doesn’t miss a thing. She steps out of my hold and tugs the lapels of her robe tight around her chin. It’s not sexy in the slightest, that stupid robe, but because it’s on her it’s a work of art.

“What’s wrong?” she demands in that vixen tone of hers that means she’s gearing up for battle. Even her raised brows punctuate her seriousness. “And this time you’re not going to get away with not answering me.”

“I think maybe it’s time for me to go,” Noah announces, shooting to his feet.

“Chicken shit,” I mumble under my breath. Though I don’t blame him for wanting to hightail it out of here. I don’t want to see the devastation and censure on Willow’s face either.

Noah strides toward the door but diverts and stops right in front of Willow instead. He throws me a strange glance, almost as if asking silent permission first, before putting his hands on her shoulders.

The atmosphere, already tense, takes a header as Noah makes his blatant move, touching her like that in front of me… especially when I know a little flick of the fingers will part the two halves hiding her sleek perfection.

Willow straightens and tips her head toward me. She knows it’s serious when she sees me making no move to break Noah’s fingers. Her mouth presses into a thin line and the worry forming wrinkles in her forehead slays me. I want to soothe her and tell her everything will be okay, but I’m not sure it will be. And it’s not only the picture. It’s everything.

“Hey,” Noah says softly, commanding Willow’s attention back to him. “Don’t believe a word of it.”

“Of what?” She’s quiet. Nervous.

Noah doesn’t answer. He takes a few long looks at her before drawing her into his arms, and while the act bristles me all over, I understand what he’s doing. It’s his way of apologizing. But I don’t blame him for that night or for the picture. I blame me. I should have stopped him the second he slid his hands under Gina’s tiny skirt.

He dips down and whispers something in Willow’s ear. Her eyes close. She squeezes him tighter. So does he. My hackles are starting to cramp when he releases her and is gone before I can throat punch him. Good move. My patience was wearing pretty thin.

Willow takes a deep breath and faces me. She fortifies her spine and winds her arms around her slim waist, all strong and ready. She’s magnificent. Christ, how I love her.

“Tell me. I can take whatever it is.”

I hope so. I fucking hope so, I want to tell her. Because if you can’t take this, we don’t have a shot at surviving far worse shit that’s patiently waiting for the right time to end us.

With tension wrapped like a vise around every muscle, I pick up the tablet Noah left and hand it to her, simultaneously throwing a plea up to any divine being listening that she’ll still look at me with love in her eyes two minutes from now instead of pure repulsion.