[CONTENT TEMPLATE HERE]
Chapter 672:
“Easton.” Louder now, her hand finding his shoulder. “Wake up p>
His eyes snapped open. For a moment they were blank, unfocused, and his hand shot out, closing around her wrist with a desperate strength.
June flinched, her own breath catching before she forced it out. The pressure wasn’t cruel, but it was absolute—the grip of a drowning man—and for a terrifying second she wasn’t in Easton’s Tribeca loft but back in another room, another life.
“June.” Her name emerged as a rasp, recognition flooding back into his face. He released her immediately, his hand moving to cover his eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t p>
“Nightmare?” she asked, her voice steadier than she felt, her wrist throbbing with a phantom ache.
He laughed, but it was broken, wrong. “Something like that p>
She should retreat. She should give him privacy, return to the bedroom, maintain the boundaries she had spent years constructing.
Instead, she sat on the edge of the coffee table, facing him, her knees almost touching his.
“Tell me,” she said.
Easton lowered his hand. In the dim light, his eyes looked black, bottomless. “You don’t want to hear this. Not now. Not when you’ve finally p>
і𝗻s𝗍𝗮𝘯𝗍 𝗮𝗰сe𝘴𝘴 𝗼𝗻 g𝖺𝗅n𝗼𝘃еl𝗌.со𝘮
“I asked.” She kept her voice flat, clinical. It was the only way she knew how to invite confession without demanding it. “I’m asking p>
He was quiet for a long moment. Then: “My grandfather. The night he died. I was supposed to be there. I was in New York, wrapped up in a case, and I told myself he would wait. That I had time.” His throat worked. “I didn’t have time. By the time I landed in L.A., he was gone. And I never got to say—” He stopped. His hand found hers, gripping with desperate strength. “I can’t lose anyone else, June. I can’t. Not when I’ve finally p>
He broke off, his breathing ragged.
June looked at their joined hands. His fingers were cold, trembling. She thought of all the times she had stood alone in the dark, waiting for morning, waiting for strength that never came. She thought of what it cost to admit weakness, to let another person see the cracks in your foundation.
She squeezed back.
“You’re not losing me,” she said. The words felt strange in her mouth, foreign. She was not accustomed to making promises she intended to keep. “Not tonight p>
Easton’s eyes found hers. Something shifted in his expression—relief, yes, but also calculation. A lawyer’s mind, always working, even in vulnerability.
“Stay,” he whispered. “Just until I fall asleep. Please p>
She should say no. She should maintain distance, protect herself, remember that intimacy was a trap that always snapped shut eventually.
She lay down beside him on the narrow sofa, her back pressed against the cushions, her body angled away but close enough that he could feel her presence. Close enough that when his hand found her hip—tentative, asking permission without words—she did not pull away.
“Thank you,” he breathed, and within minutes his breathing slowed, deepened, evened out.