From Best Friend To Fiancé (Savannah and Roman) novel Chapter 429

From Best Friend To Flance

Chapter 429

Chapter 242: He Was Shot

I don’t know what unsettled me more.

The fact that I’d been outplayed by a nerdy girl whose idea of rebellion was probably skipping class once in college?

Or the fact that I was the one unraveling over it.

This made no sense. None at all.

I’d woken up this morning expecting regret. Maybe irritation. Maybe the usual detachment that followed sex when it meant nothing more

than release and distraction.

Instead, I’d woken up wired. Tense. Hyper–aware of every sound in the house. Of every movement. Of her. Elizabeth.

She’d moved through the morning like yesterday hadn’t happened. Like we hadn’t crossed a line that two people who were practically still considered strangers should never cross.

She hadn’t spoken to me since that happened. Not even once since yesterday.

She’d instead brushed past me in the hallway to get to the kitchen, barefoot, hair tied back loosely, wearing one of her faded concert t- shirts like everything was okay. No awkwardness. No hesitation. No lingering glance.

Nothing.

She’d poured herself coffee. Toasted bread. Sat on the couch and turned on the television yesterday like this was her house and I was just background noise. Like we hadn’t been naked together a few hours ago. Like she hadn’t trusted me with something I never should’ve

touched.

Like I wasn’t losing my fucking mind.

I leaned against the doorway now, watching her from a distance. She sat cross–legged on the couch, bowl balanced on her thigh, spoon moving steadily from cereal to mouth as she watched what looked like a gruesome crime documentary. There was blood spatter. Chalk

outlines. Grainy footage.

But she didn’t flinch. Instead she welcomed each spoonful hungrily, letting her upper lip glide across the spoon. Almost in slow motion.

I swallowed hard.

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Chapter 429

20

I’d slept with a lot of women. I’d walked away from all of them clean. No complications. No attachments. No guilt. I’d learned early what emotions cost. I’d learned the hard way what happened when you blurred lines you had no business crossing.

That was why I had rules, Clear ones. No virgins. No attachments. No hard feelings.

Just fun. Just business. Just bodies that didn’t leave marks or memories. Until her.

Until I’d been standing in my bathroom last night, staring down at a bloodied condom in my hand, my chest tightening like someone had

wrapped wire around my ribs and started pulling.

I’d never been with a virgin. Except once. And that disaster had rewritten my entire fucking life.

So how had I missed it? How hadn’t I known?

Her insistence. Her planning. The way she’d been so precise. Too direct. Too bold.

God.

Why hadn’t it occurred to me that she wasn’t experienced—that she was merely performing experience?

That she wasn’t nervous because she was shy, but because she was calculating?

She’d known exactly what she was doing. And I’d walked straight into it. Hook, line, sinker.

The thought made my jaw tighten. I dragged a hand down my face and exhaled slowly, trying to get control of the chaos spiraling through my head.

Get a fucking grip, Reese.

I shouldn’t be thinking about last night. I shouldn’t be dissecting it like it meant something. I should be doing exactly what she was doing–acting like it was nothing. Like it was just another Tuesday. I should only be focused on what mattered.

Roman. My brother.

That was the real reason my nerves were shot. The real reason unease clung to me like a second skin.

Yesterday, Roman had called sounding… wrong. Worried.

He sounded very tight and controlled over the phone like he was forcing calm over something volatile.

He’d said things had gone sideways in Savannah’s hometown. That what he’d expected to be a confrontation had turned into a full–blown gun party. That bodies were down. That blood had been spilled. And he’d said names.

The two women he’d come back with. The ones in the bus that night. Dead. Both of them. But that hadn’t been what made my stomach

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