Page 94 of The Viper
He raised an eyebrow. “A dog?”
“Yes, a big one. Maybe two. Something loyal that doesn’t care what I look like on the cover of a magazine.”
He smiled, the kind that softened his whole face. “I like that version of you.”
“What about you?” I asked. “If you weren’t … whatever this is.”
He laughed once, low and real. “What?”
I arched a brow. “I was going to say secretive soldier with a mysterious resume, but you tell me.”
He looked away, out the window where sunlight danced on the water. “I’d build something. A place. A life that doesn’t need defending all the damn time.”
His voice had gone quieter, but something in it caught me—a trace of longing I hadn’t heard before.
“You could do that,” I said softly.
“Maybe.” His thumb brushed over my lips. “If I had the right reason to.”
The air between us changed, thickened. For a second, I forgot to breathe.
Something about the way he said it—the right reason—hit me in a place I hadn’t touched in years. I used to want that. The whole thing. Marriage. A home that wasn’t rented out to my production company every other month. Kids whose laughter filled hallways that didn’t echo with emptiness.
When I was younger, it was an innocent dream. Simple. A husband who’d love me for who I was. A little house near the water, maybe. A life where no one knew or cared about red carpets or opening weekends.
Then, as the spotlight grew hotter, the dream twisted into strategy. I started telling myself maybe it could work if I married someone who understood it—someone in the business. Another actor, a director, a producer. Someone who wouldn’t flinch at the press or the long hours or the cameras waiting outside our door.
But lately, without even realizing it, I’d stopped thinking about any of that. I’d stopped believing it was for me. Love, marriage, children—those were for people who could disappear into ordinary days. For people who didn’t have to plan every move or hide behind tinted glass.
Somewhere along the way, I’d quietly folded up that dream and put it on a shelf markedunrealistic.
And yet now, lying here in Lucas’s arms, I felt the ache of it again. Not the fame-proof version or the strategic one. The real one. The kind that lived under my ribs, still tender, still wanting.
I just didn’t know how to make it fit with the life I had.
I didn’t know how to make me fit with it.
Then a knock at the door broke the spell.
“Mr. Dane?” Teddy’s voice. “Breakfast is served.”
“Thank you.”
I smiled as footsteps retreated down the hall. “We should probably go. I’m starving.”
“Yeah,” he said, but didn’t move. He leaned in, kissed me once—slow, certain. “Later, we’ll finish that conversation.”
“What conversation?” I teased, slipping out of bed and reaching for the shirt Meghan had lent me.
“The one where I convince you to get two dogs instead of one. Littermates, even.”
I laughed, buttoning it up. “Good luck with that.”
He pulled on jeans and a T-shirt, raking a hand through his hair, and for a moment, he looked disarmingly normal. A man, not a myth. Not a soldier or a savior or anything larger than life. Just Lucas.
When we stepped into the hall, voices and laughter drifted up from below. I could already picture the kitchen—Delphine bustling around in her apron, coffee cups clinking, the brothers’ low rumble of conversation filling the space. It felt like something close to normalcy waited downstairs.
But I wasn’t ready yet.
