(Human Emmett Cullen POV)
By the time I got home that night, the anger had flattened into something usable.
Not gone. Just organized.
You were upstairs in your office when I came in, music low behind the half-open door, the soft click of hangers and a drawer opening and closing. I dropped my gym bag near the bedroom door without thinking, stripped off my shirt, and headed toward the shower. I needed hot water and ten minutes where nobody asked me for anything.
You leaned out of your office just enough to catch me passing.
“There you are,” you said. “Why do you look like you’re planning a hostile takeover?”
“It’s the one you’re getting until I’m clean.”
I blew you a kiss anyway and kept moving.
In the bathroom, I toed off my shoes, shoved my jeans down, and stepped out of them fast, dropping them in a loose pile near the hamper. Phone on the counter. Watch beside it. Shower on.
I was halfway under the water when I heard you come in.
Not unusual. We shared space all the time. You probably just wanted your moisturizer or to complain about a client while I was trapped and naked.
Instead, through the glass and steam, I heard you say, “I’m stealing your jeans for the laundry pile.”
Every muscle in my body locked.
Because my heart decided, all at once, to remind me of one very specific thing:
The engagement ring box was in the right pocket.
I’d slipped it there earlier before work because I’d changed bags that morning and never moved it back.
For one blinding second, I just stared at the shower door, water running over my face, brain moving too fast.
If you picked them up naturally, you’d feel it.
If you checked the pocket, I was dead.
If I lunged out of the shower like a lunatic, I was even deader.
So I made myself do the only thing I could do—stay calm enough to sound normal.
“Leave those,” I called over the water.
“Why?” you asked, suspicious immediately, because of course you did.
I grabbed the soap just to have something to do with my hands.
“Because they’re gross,” I said. “I had to deal with disinfectant spray in the back office and I do not want that touching the rest of the clothes.”
Then, “That sounds fake.”
“Baby,” I said, keeping my voice level, “I literally watched Luis hose down a bench with enough chemicals to kill a Victorian child. Leave the jeans. I’ll handle them.”
I could hear you closer now, which meant you were still standing over the pile, still deciding whether I sounded believable.
My pulse was going insane.
“You’re weird,” you said finally.
Then I heard the rustle of fabric being set back down.
I had to close my eyes for a second under the spray.
Near miss. Way too close.
When I opened them again, you were a blurry shape through the glass, hands on hips, looking at me with that expression that said you knew something was off but hadn’t decided if it mattered.
“You’re taking those downstairs yourself, then,” you said.
“You also owe me a kiss for being bossy.”
“That’s because I just made it up.”
I laughed despite myself, the tightness in my chest loosening by a fraction.
“Get in here then,” I said.
You opened the glass door just enough to lean in, warm and dry and smug, and I caught your wrist and pulled you close enough to kiss you properly without soaking you. Slow at first, then a little deeper when your hand slid into my damp hair and you made that pleased little sound you always make when you get exactly what you wanted.
When we pulled apart, you looked maddeningly satisfied.
Then you glanced down toward the jeans pile one more time.
My heart tried to stop again.
But all you did was wrinkle your nose.
“Still think you’re being weird.”
You laughed and backed out, closing the glass again.
“Don’t take forever,” you said as you left. “I’m hungry and I want attention.”
The second the bathroom door shut behind you, I exhaled so hard it nearly turned into a curse.
I finished the shower in record time, stepped out, and grabbed the jeans immediately, ring box still safely in the pocket. I moved it the second I got into the bedroom—straight from denim to gym bag, zipped deep into the interior pocket where it belonged.
You were sprawled across the bed on your stomach when I came out, phone in hand, ankles kicking lazily in the air.
“You survived,” you said.
I tossed the jeans toward the laundry basket and climbed up beside you, one hand sliding under your shirt to your waist just because I needed to touch you after that level of panic.
You rolled toward me easily, smiling.
“Better mood?” you asked.
“That answer also sucks.”
I kissed you before you could keep going, partly because I wanted to and partly because it worked. Your mouth softened under mine instantly, and within a few seconds you were distracted enough that the interrogation died a horny death.
And while you melted into me, warm and laughing and completely unaware of how close you’d just gotten, all I could think was that I was going to need to be a hell of a lot smarter to keep you from seeing it until you’re meant to.