Heart of Stone

Teddy's POV: The Confrontation (Bonus Chapter)

Ed's POV: The Confrontation

**Spoilers if you haven't finished Heart of Stone yet**

Soph slept silently beside me, her soft breaths warm against my shoulder. In the space of three cities, she'd gone from sneaking out after sex, to staying the night but facing away from me, to snuggling into my side.

Progress.

For her, anyway.

For me, each day wound me a pinch tighter. Every shared laugh, vulnerable confession, explosive orgasm. They sucked me deeper into a friendship like nothing I'd experienced before. A bond. One that I wanted to last forever.

Waking up in bed together. Bouncing creative ideas off one another. Romantic dinners in the evenings. Dirty sex at night. A best friend. A lover. A confidant. A true partner in every sense of the word. To make it even better, she wasn't a fan.

She liked me for me.

It sounded too good to be true. It probably was. I just wasn't ready to consider that.

I rolled onto my side to face her. Dark eyelashes brushed her cheekbones, still rosy from sex earlier. She didn't usually fall asleep so quickly, but tonight we'd gone hard. New boundaries. Experiments. Physical exhaustion aside, it must have taken extreme mental strength for her to trust me with everything we'd done.

Trust.

Pain clawed at my heart. At least the sex was real, even if nothing else was.

*

In the bright morning light, my head had cleared. Soph may not end up being my forever-confidant, but I still had someone who played that role to perfection.

"Hey." I leaned a shoulder against Mark's doorframe when he answered my knock. "Can we talk?"

He stepped aside, tipping his chin to invite me in. I wandered towards the seating area in front of his window. Golden rays cast harsh shadows across Berlin's buildings below us. Beauty mixed with darkness. How damn appropriate.

"Everything okay?" Mark asked.

"I'm stressing about Soph."

His business face instantly softened. "You need to talk to her, bud. This isn't healthy."

"I know." I scraped a hand over my face as I collapsed into the armchair. The leather creaked beneath my weight. "I've never had anything like this before. I'm not ready to give it up."

"The longer this goes on, the more it's going to hurt. You can't bury your head in the soft sands of Fantasyland forever."

He was right. If I didn't want to give her up after six weeks together, how tough would it be after six months? Stronger feelings would impair my judgement completely by then. I'd end up forgiving her, because that would be easier than walking away.

"We don't know if it's Fantasyland," I said. "It feels real."

"Maybe it is, but what does your instinct tell you?"

"It tells me she's double-crossing." Guilt sucker-punched my gut as I said it out-loud.

Every time I thought I'd come to terms with my suspicion, Soph's beaming face invaded my conscience. I could be wrong. God, I hoped I was wrong.

"Your instinct has always been good. Don't ignore it. It will eat away at you and ruin whatever relationship you do have with her. Regardless of whether you were right or not."