The Bed You Make
Chapter 23, concluded
Three nights.
Three restless, uncomfortable nights since she'd made her bold declaration. And if the last hour was any indicator of things to come, she could just go ahead and change that tally to four.
Dara Jensen Cassadine levered herself into a sitting position. “I need some sleep.” Automatically she glanced toward the door that separated her from Stefan's suite. “I'll bet he's not having any trouble sleeping,” she noted wryly. Though it galled her to say it, Dara had never seen anyone so confident and unflappable as Stefan Cassadine. His entire demeanor radiated such self-assurance that it was easy to be lulled into compliance by him.
Thankfully, she'd seen that trap before becoming hopelessly entangled in it.
Dara flopped back down onto the cloud of pillows. “This is ridiculous,” she murmured into the darkness. “I should be fast asleep.”
‘ You know why you aren't ,” a little voice taunted Dara. Over the past three days her subconscious had been echoing the same solution for her insomnia.
“ Fine ,” Dara sighed, in surrender. “Just… fine .”
The weary lawyer climbed out of bed and made her way across the darkened room. With each step she took, the taunting voice in her head grew louder. Resolutely she ignored it.
Dara stopped in front of the dresser. She eased the Japanese print nightgown from her shoulders and let it slide to the floor in soft heap. She opened the top dresser drawer and withdrew the black silk pajama top Mrs. Landsbury's staff had mistakenly included among Dara's things.
Dara donned the soft garment and returned to bed. As she slipped beneath the covers, she caught the faint scent of the enigmatic man to whom the silken pajama top belonged. It was a subtle scent, dry, masculine and hinting of danger. Dara knew that the aroma was the result of a laboratory's research and Stefan's body chemistry. Still, the two things combined to form a distinctive scent that Dara knew she would associate with her ‘husband' long after their agreement was dissolved.
She would miss Stefan when this was all over, Dara sleepily thought. Miss his razor-sharp intellect, she hastened to correct herself. She'd miss his wit. Conversations with him had all the give and take of courtroom deliberations.
She would not miss the man, though. He was arrogant and manipulative and…
Dara felt herself drifting into sleep. Deliberately she chose not to examine why but instead snuggled deeper into Stefan's silk pajama top.
“So…” The single word, so perfectly enunciated into the darkness, immediately erased any trace of sleepiness Dara felt. “It would seem that the charade has ended.”
