When did he become my Kryptonite?
“Well, what if I promise not to get back together with him this time? It’ll just be the sex,” Georgia said, making me groan and laugh at the same time.
“Georgia, you said this last time,” I said while smiling to myself at what I saw at the top of the pile of mail on the kitchen counter. It was some obscure, fancy-looking gardening catalogue, which seemed like something Adam had no business receiving, given he had never gardened or even spoken the word “gardening” in his life.
Georgia was going on about soul mates and the concept of “twin flames” as I walked out onto the terrace then floated back into the kitchen, gravitating absently to the counter again and deciding a closer look at the catalogue.
But when I picked it up, my eyes were drawn to what lay underneath.
A cream envelope.
It had Adam’s address on the top left corner in his handwriting, and it was on the somewhat pricy stationery set I bought him years ago, when he’d asked me to find him “something nice.”
Scrawled in red on the envelope were the words “RETURN TO SENDER.”
With instant guilt, I dropped the catalogue back onto the envelope, taking a step back. But not before I’d already processed the address it was mailed to. There was no name, but it was an address in Asheville, North Carolina.
I blinked as I remembered that I’d seen Adam writing this letter last week.
“Okay, I can hear your judgment in the silence, so fine, I shan’t text him,” Georgia said in a huff. “Also I know I’ve kept you on the phone forever, so go be with your man.”
“He’s not—” I cut off. “Georgia, you just go drink some water now, okay? And if you take a bath, text me once you get out so I know you didn’t fall asleep and drown in there.”
“Yes, ma’am, will do.”
Once we hung up, I wandered back to the living room just in time to see Adam coming down the stairs all showered, wearing a soft T-shirt and the same sweats he wore at the hotel room in Palm Beach.
It was only a few weeks ago, but it already felt like a different lifetime.
I smiled as Adam pulled me to him by the front of my top and kissed me all the way to the couch, bringing me to a straddle on his lap. He tasted my mouth in slow, deliberate licks as I lay my hands flat on his chest, and just feeling the warmth and hardness of his muscle under my fingers made me feel drunk again.
And tiny. At five-foot-six, I never felt particularly small, but I did in Adam’s arms, and while I never knew I wanted or needed the feeling, I had to admit that I kind of loved it.
I was floating off on a cloud by the time I finally pulled away to crack a little smile at him. “Thank you for sitting with my crazy friends today. And for bringing Georgia cupcakes. That was really sweet.”
I could see his lips curved in a smile as he dropped a kiss onto my shoulder. “Everything good with her?”
“Yep. Just had to prevent her from falling down that rabbit hole of booty calls and exes and… on-again off-again madness… you know how it is.”
“I don’t, actually,” he said. It was without judgment or humor—it was just total honesty. And it was the exact topic Emily had told me to ask him about. I told myself not to ask though—to just leave it, because I wouldn’t like the answer.
But the question just slipped out. “Why not?”
Adam blinked like he’d forgotten what we were talking about. “What do you mean?”
“Why is that a rule?” I asked. “The no-relationship thing.”
His brow furrowed. “It’s not a rule. I’d just… never cared to be. I like keeping my life compartmentalized, and that can’t really happen when you have a partne
r. You have to share everything,” he said. Before I could overanalyze that, he gave a rueful laugh. “Plus, I was born into enough complicated relationships. I have a lot to sort with that. I still have to make things up to the people I already love.”
“What do you mean? Like with Holland?”
“Yeah. I don’t want to have to rely completely on Iain or you to remember my own sister’s existence. I need to reverse this instinct I have to just… not care about her too much.” He shook his head to himself, like he found himself confused. “It’s not right.”
I was quiet for a second, staring at Adam’s long lashes as I watched him play with the drawstring of my linen joggers. Do I dare ask him? I asked myself before deciding that I did. “How did it get that bad?” My question came out barely above a whisper. “What did she do?” I asked.
Because while I didn’t know exactly how she did it, I knew who was at the root of all of this.