Page 69 of Breaking the Rules
There was zero chance of her moving on unscathed. She’d known better yet still couldn’t say no.
No one made her feel the way Xavier Saint did. Raw, stripped bare, vulnerable yet still protected, cherished. It was impossible to maintain a safe distance as they worshipped each other’s bodies into the night. There wasn’t an inch of her he hadn’t touched, hadn’t loved.
And still she wanted more. It was the pull that he had over her. The more she had him, the more he feasted on her, the more she needed.
He knew nearly all of her secrets. The last obstacle, her last layer of protection, was Dante. What would happen when Xavier found him for her? Because she knew he would. He’d stop at nothing to give her whatever he thought she wanted. But if Dante was found alive, that last secret would be told. There would be nothing left to stand between them.
Not that her “relationship” with Dante had been enough to slow Xavier’s seduction.
Waverly rolled onto her back and closed her eyes and followed her mother’s instructions into the final pose.
“It is in savasana, or corpse pose, that we finally let go,” Sylvia’s soothing voice sighed through the studio. “Here we find the spaciousness in our bodies, in our hearts. Here we let our worries, our fears, our need to control gather and die away. Here we welcome everything as it is.”
Waverly let everything go on her mat, everything except Xavier. There was no letting go of him.
“How do you feel, darling?” Sylvia asked, joining Waverly on her mat after the classroom emptied out.
Waverly stretched luxuriously. “Like my body melted. You’re an excellent teacher, Mom.”
Her mother waved away the praise. “You were moving through sun salutation as if you’d finished a marathon yesterday. Is it safe to assume that Xavier got his way?”
Sober Sylvia was eerily perceptive.
“Mom!”
“I know you don’t feel comfortable sharing everything about your love life,” Sylvia said patting her leg. “But this is Xavier.”
Sylvia knew exactly how gutted Waverly had been over him. In the wake of Sylvia’s stay in rehab and Waverly’s near-death experience, they had bonded over therapy sessions and late night talks.
“We may have resumed a particular area of our relationship last night,” Waverly said vaguely.
“I thought I recognized a satisfied woman,” Sylvia said.
“Gross, Mom!”
“Darling, if you don’t want people thinking about you and Xavier like that, you’re going to have to tone down the sparks that fly between you two. When you came to dinner, I thought you’d start a wildfire.”
“He says he loves me.”
Sylvia nodded, waited.
“I don’t want to love him.”
“Because he hurt you before?” Sylvia prompted.
“That and… I don’t know how to describe it. He’s so all consuming. There’s nothing safe and steady there. He makes mefeeltoo much. The highs are meteoric, and the lows are devastating. It’s not healthy.”
Sylvia reached for her hand, squeezed it. “Waverly, did it ever occur to you that seeking the safety of numbness is what’s not healthy?”
Waverly sat with that for a moment.
“You can’t protect yourself from life, daughter of mine,” Sylvia said with a sad smile. “I would love to keep you from feeling any of the hurt that it brings, but that wouldn’t be fair. The point isn’t to get through life unscathed. It’s to throw yourself into it and experience every drop of it. Get scarred, get scared, soar high, love whenever possible.”
“Jeez, Mom. Did you chug the yoga holy water today?”
Sylvia laughed. “Okay, darling. I’ll leave it alone. I believe you’ll find your way. Let’s go drag Kate away from Arturo, and we’ll treat ourselves to some facials.”
On impulse, Waverly pulled her mom in for a hug. “Thank you for being here.”
