Renna Rose Lancaster never searched for love.
She stumbled into it long before she was old enough to know what to call it.
It lived inside flower crowns that barely survived a minute on his head. Pebbles he slipped into her pockets because every tre...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
When I finally managed to pry my eyelids apart, the distressed lumber crossbeams above me definitely weren't the crystal-chandeliered ceiling of my bedroom. For a terrifying five seconds, my sleep-befuddled brain debated if I'd been bundled into the back of a van or unceremoniously dropped inside a musty antique shop.
Then my vision adjusted, revealing the soft glow filtering through the space.
Fairy lights were woven loosely over the curtain, bleeding a gooey, golden twilight into the room. Strung underneath them on a length of twine was a chaotic little gallery of us. Aadam looking infuriatingly photogenic without even trying while I pulled a caffeine-addled face at the lens; another one where I was staring at him with such an embarrassing lack of composure that my chest thumped just looking at it.
God, I am so irrecoverably fucked over this man.
It was almost insulting how badly I wanted to pull his pretty face into my chest and never let him breathe fresh air again.
I went to stretch, only to discover I'd been tightly mummified. Aadam had swaddled me in his jacket, layering the duvet over the top like a lead shield. Breaking free took a full athletic effort, but as soon as the leather slid off my shoulders and the biting air hit my skin, I immediately chickened out. I dragged the collar back up to my nose, inhaling deep. It smelled like rain-slicked leather and that grounding scent that was just him.
After an unglamorous wrestling match with the bedding—which involved vicious kicking, a lot of muffled swearing, and nearly pitching headfirst off the mattress onto the floor—I finally dragged myself upright.
Teeth chattering, I padded barefoot over to the vanity mirror, fully bracing myself for a jump scare.
The creature staring back in the glass was an unhinged fallen angel. My hair looked like a bird had nested in it and died, an ugly crimson crease ran from my left temple down to my jaw line where I'd smashed my face into the pillowcase, and I was standing there wearing next to nothing.
Honestly? Still a fucking ten.
I spent ten solid seconds locking eyes with my reflection, executing a sequence of supermodel poses, blowing myself a kiss, and giving my arse a little shake for good measure.
Feeling marginally more awake, I reached for my phone on the nightstand, tapped the screen, and froze dead.
21:27.
The air rushed straight out of my lungs. "No way."
I rubbed my eyes, squinting hard, fully expecting the digital display to recalibrate to a respectable seven or eight.
It didn't.
Nine-thirty at night?
Three fucking hours—poof, spectacularly wasted. We had precisely seventy-two hours here before reality yanked us back by the collars, and I'd spent the grand opening act passed out like a tranquilized bear while everyone else was probably downstairs getting sloshed around the fire pit.
