Soren rolled to his side, pulling my back to his front, his arms wrapping me up, keeping me close.

“You’re safe with me,” he said, voice so soft I barely heard it.

Those words were a cooling balm to my overheated nervous system.

Despite knowing it was a mistake, I felt myself relaxing against him, sinking into the sensations of our close bodies, allowing myself to be held for perhaps the first time ever.

And somehow, even though I never, ever allowed it to happen before, I fell asleep with Soren.

As I drifted off, the only thought that crossed my mind was that he was right; I’d never felt safer in my life.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Soren

She was lying to me.

I hadn’t exactly been idle since the last time I’d seen her. I knew that, if I wanted to protect myself and my business, I had to get to the bottom of the gut instinct that Saff wasn’t what she portrayed herself to be.

It didn’t take much digging to learn that Saff Amato—or even Saffron Amato—hadn’t existed ten years ago.

She told me she’d changed her first name.

But at some point, she’d clearly changed her last one as well. Because in this day and age, it was almost impossible not to have a trail leading back to you at some point from birth to her mid-twenties.

When that search turned up nothing, I set my sights on her company. Which didn’t even exist.

Amato Holdings was simply a crummy office with a plaque on the door. Not a real business.

I honestly wasn’t even surprised by that information.

None of it ever sat right with me.

I mean, when she was in slacks, heels, and a blouse, she walked like a newborn giraffe, stumbling around on wobbly legs. But when she was in jeans, boots, and a tee? She had an undeniable swagger, a loud confidence that filled the air around her.

She wasn’t who she said she was.

And I hated being deceived, even if I knew that made me a complete hypocrite.

And, yet, I couldn’t talk myself out of wanting her, of reminding my doorman about her, of hoping and praying I might see those elevator doors slide open and have her walk in.

It had become such a fantasy that I almost didn’t believe my eyes when I walked down to find her standing there.

As soon as she was there, all that other shit, it fell away.

All that mattered was her.

Was us.

Was whatever the hell had been simmering between us since the moment we’d met.

Hell, since the moment I saw her on the street outside of my office building.

It had taken superhuman self-control to take my time with her, to go slow, to soak up every moment, each sensation.