I Choose Him, Your Worst Enemy novel Chapter 171

Alice stepped back into the lounge and made a beeline for Wynette, dropping into the seat beside her without so much as glancing in Jamie's direction.

Jamie, for his part, hadn't stopped watching Alice from the moment she walked in, something carefully restrained and tenderly exasperated living in the depths of his eyes.

Alice leaned in close to Wynette's ear, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur. "Hold on, you're blushing. You were just helping Adriel put on a show out there. What happened?"

She wondered if something had occurred on the walk back that she'd missed entirely.

Wynette pressed her palm lightly against her own cheek. "Is it that obvious? I had a bit of a cocktail earlier. Alcohol hits me fast."

Even the smallest amount turned her cheeks a vivid, traitorously visible pink.

Alice relaxed immediately. "Oh, that's all? I was starting to wonder."

Wynette smiled and said nothing further.

Half of it was the cocktail, yes.

The other half was the man sitting right beside her, and she cut him a sideways look that communicated exactly how she felt about that.

His fault, entirely.

She'd done him a genuine favor out there, stepping in and cutting off his unwanted admirer with perfect timing.

On the way back, he'd kept hold of her the entire way through the banquet hall, the two of them walking so close together that people had stared, and every time she'd tried to create a bit of sensible distance, his arm had simply tightened around her waist.

She'd ended up looking like she was attached to him.

The amused looks from the crowd, combined with the warmth radiating off him, had done their damage thoroughly.

The rest of the evening passed in comfortable rhythm. Wynette and Alice stayed close, while the men gathered in their own corner for a few quiet drinks.

Near the end of the banquet, Wynette's sleeve caught a glass and sent a splash of wine across the front of her gown.

She checked the time, said a quick goodbye to Alice, and slipped away early to get back to the room.

She figured she'd change out of the gown while Adriel was still downstairs.

She'd barely finished changing when a knock came at the door.

A staff member in a pressed uniform stood outside, a sealed bottle of mineral water on the tray in their hands.

"Ms. Jewell, Mr. Gallagher asked me to bring this to you."

Wynette took the bottle. "Thank you."

She set it on the nightstand without thinking much of it.

She hadn't drunk very much and wasn't particularly thirsty, so it sat there untouched while she settled in with her phone.

About half an hour later, another knock came.

Wynette set her phone down and went to answer it.

Nobody was there.

She stepped out into the corridor and looked both ways. The hallway was completely empty, not a soul in either direction.

She decided she must have heard someone at the neighboring cabin and mixed it up.

After looking around and made sure no one was in the corridor, she pulled the door shut and, out of simple habit, turned the lock from the inside.

She was drifting pleasantly toward sleep when the door handle moved.

The drowsiness vanished instantly.

She went to the door and kept her voice low. "Adriel?"

"It's me." His voice came through from the other side.

Wynette turned the lock and opened the door.

Only Adriel stood in the hallway, carrying the faint, warm ghost of wine on him.

He came in, pulled his tie loose with one hand, and started working the buttons of his shirt.

Wynette followed a step behind him and picked up the tie he'd let fall to the floor.

By the time she looked up, he was already on the couch, the heel of one hand pressed to his temple where a dull ache had apparently settled in.

Having someone else in the bed was simply an unfamiliar sensation, and her nervous system had opinions about it.

She closed her eyes and told herself firmly that sleep was easy, just a matter of letting go.

She counted slowly in her head, and somewhere between one number and the next, the drowsiness crept back in and swallowed her whole.

She didn't notice, as she slipped under, that the tension in her shoulders had already dissolved, the same way it always seemed to, quietly and without permission, whenever she was near him.

Adriel lay awake, turned on his side, watching Wynette sleep.

He hadn't actually had that much to drink. A single glass, barely more than a taste. The wine smell on his jacket was something he'd arranged deliberately, and the flush in his face had been manufactured with a bit of brisk friction to his cheeks before he came through the door.

He genuinely wasn't sure whether to feel grateful that she trusted him so completely, or something more complicated about the fact that she'd let her guard down this thoroughly in his presence.

Looking at her sleeping face, the smile at the corner of his mouth stayed put, warm, private, and entirely involuntary.

He watched her for a long, still moment.

And then something shifted.

A heat crawled up through him from nowhere, low and insistent, settling in his chest and spreading further south in a way that had nothing to do with temperature.

His gaze drifted to her lips, soft and still and entirely unguarded, and something in him pulled toward her with a force he hadn't been expecting.

He lifted his head, slowly, and closed the distance between them by degrees.

His forehead came to rest against hers, and there was barely a centimeter of air left between their mouths.

Then clarity hit him like cold water.

The heat wasn't natural. Something was wrong. The wanting was too sharp, too sudden, too indiscriminate in the way it had come over him.

Adriel sat up and swung himself off the bed in one quick motion. His eyes landed on the water bottle Wynette had handed him from the nightstand. He grabbed it, turned, and walked out of the room.

The sudden movement jolted Wynette awake.

She blinked, still half-caught in sleep, and caught only the sight of Adriel's unsteady silhouette disappearing through the door.