Sweet Seduction ✔︎

|19| 𝑴𝒊𝒔𝒔 𝑫𝒐𝒏𝒐𝒗𝒂𝒏

You’ll never let yourself admit that you just might love me, too.

Her words, her musical voice, ran incessantly through him. He didn’t know what to do with that statement, where to fit it in the narrow corridors and angles of his mind and heart. But it was no surprise that Freya Donovan was the only person who had ever seen past his corroded layers to the truth at the very center of him.

Gavin still didn’t dare to believe it was love. He’d never been in love before. Could it happen this way—in slow, steady increments over the course of a year, like drops of water filling a bucket?

Had he started to fall in love with Freya the instant he first saw her sitting on the bakery counter, swinging her leg and eyeing him with interest? Then when their gazes met, and he first heard her voice?

And with every moment after—when she brought him his coffee-with-no-sugar order and lingered by his chair, and he inhaled the scent that belonged only to her. When he overheard her happy chatter about new clubs and happy hours. When she showed up at Rainbow Palace on a moment’s notice to help out when an employee called in sick. When she twirled a lock of daffodil-sunshine hair around her finger and made a throaty, suggestive remark that went straight to his blood.

When a homeless man wandered into the bakery, and she fixed him a sandwich before giving him cash from her purse. When she firmly told Jupiter she wanted to take over the wedding plans because she saw that Jupiter was running herself ragged doing too much. When she wore new flowered tights or a sweater that hugged her perfect breasts. When she watered the bakery plants and took special care to turn them toward the light.

Every single one of those moments, and countless more, had slowly, steadily, filled Gavin’s heart to the point that his entire day had been colored with anticipation over when he’d see Freya again. He hadn’t dared to think he’d ever cross the invisible line he’d drawn between them, until the wedding had forced him to.

Or given him a great excuse.

And when he finally spoke to Freya, kissed her, touched her, cooked her dinner… she became part of his world. His whole world. The best, most all-encompassing part of him.

If that wasn’t love… then what the hell was?

The questions and thoughts buzzed relentlessly through his mind, even when he was working. That alone was a measure of how desperate he was for Freya. The wedding was over, but Knight Security still had contracts to fulfill so there was no shortage of tasks. And yet through it all, he couldn’t get her out of his head.

He’d never be able to get her out of his heart.

Two weeks after Josh and Jupiter’s wedding, he was running himself into the ground with twenty-hour workdays. Walking back into his neutral, silent house was like entering a mausoleum.

He shed his coat and went to pour himself a scotch, but the liquor tasted bitter and sour. He tossed it into the sink and opened the freezer, digging out a carton of strawberry ice cream that he’d bought with Freya in mind.

He scooped a pile of ice cream into a bowl and sank down in front of the TV, flicking the channels before stopping on a romantic comedy that, of course, reminded him of the girl who’d stolen his heart.

Christ. He stared at the screen, everything in him flattened and cold. Without Freya, the bad stuff had returned full-force, the blistering nightmares waking him from shallow sleep. He’d taken to coloring to ease his mind, having bought all of Freya’s granny’s coloring books. Filling in the illustrations of fairytale lands and secret gardens had become a balm over the scorching burn of his past.