Free Sparked (city2city: Hollywood) by Edie Harris

sparked within him. He’d spent far too long wrapped up in thoughts of the woman in the mask, and not the one behind it, and he needed her unmasked with him for what he planned to say. “Can I come in?”
    Silently, she stepped back from the door, waving him into the front hall of her luxurious house. The ceiling stretched two stories over their heads, constructed of sheets of glass and clean white beams. In daylight, sunlight would brighten the space, the white walls glowing brilliant and warm. His throat tightened, gladdened to know she had sunshine like that in her life every single day.  
    After closing the door behind him, she turned her careful gaze on him, taking in his appearance from his Chuck Taylors, over his favorite pair of jeans to the well-worn chambray shirt unbuttoned at his throat, sleeves rolled to his elbows. He hadn’t shaved since the premiere, and he hadn’t bothered trying to tame the wildness that was his hair.
    Sadie, on the other hand, looked pristine and edible at the same time. Barefoot and seemingly casual, she’d paired sleek black pants with an oversized creamy sweater, the neckline of which drooped artfully over one bare shoulder to reveal the lacy, wine-colored strap of her bra. Her straight hair, which had hung halfway down her back during filming for Vendetta , now brushed her collarbone in a fall of soft black.  
    She didn’t wear a speck of makeup. She didn’t need to.  
    It was the lack of cosmetics that jarred him, and he realized that for the first time since their night together in London a decade ago, he was seeing her, Sadie. Sadako. It didn’t matter that her expression was guarded, her posture tense—the physical mask had disappeared.
    The intimacy she allowed him simply by inviting him into her home sparked a flicker of hope inside him. “Shouldn’t you be spending Christmas with your family?” he asked, chest tight, heart racing.  
    “Shouldn’t you?” she countered sharply before pinching the bridge of her nose between two fingers. “Sorry.”
    “Don’t be.” Seeing that she wasn’t any closer to relaxing in his presence, nor inclined to lead him further into the house, he strove for a casual tone. “Jon is flying out to visit over New Year’s. He’s swamped with work right now.”
    “Oh?”
    Ryan shrugged, as if he wasn’t blindingly proud of his twin’s accomplishments. “That’s what happens when you’re the youngest U.S. senator from the state of Illinois since the early nineteenth century.” Though the session had dismissed for the holidays, he knew Jon would spend tonight cooped up in his fancy apartment in Washington, D.C., poring over paperwork like the overachieving pain in the butt he’d always been. “I called him on my way over here.”
    “Did you tell him what you were doing?”
    “I told him what I hoped to be doing.”
    “If the answer to that is me, then—”
    “I said I was going to go tell the woman I fell in love with ten years ago that I loved her.” Panic buzzed in his ears, but he could hear how calm he sounded, how steady. “You smiled at me on that train and stole my heart, and I’ve never gotten it back from you.”
    Her lips parted, breath catching audibly as she stared up at him. “Do you want your heart back, Ryan?”
    “No.” He stood tall, shoulders back and spine straight, and felt everything click into place inside him. Finally, he listened to what his masochistic heart had been trying to tell him since the moment he’d met Sadie, so he handed it over into her keeping, permanently. “I think you’ll do a much better job of looking after it than I ever could.”
    “You love me.” She looked shocked.
    “I love you,” he confirmed. “I’ve loved you my entire adult life, whether I knew it or not.” There wasn’t a single part of him anymore untouched by the loving of her, and it was a terrible power she held in those delicate hands of hers. He scrubbed his palm over his sternum, where the