“My dad did the same thing, only it was so much worse.” He was so much worse.

The tiny insults and the idea he’d given them both that they’d be lost without him. Scatterbrained creative types who always messed things up. Who made him so angry sometimes . . .

But they’d stood strong. He’d gone on to some other woman, and they’d been just fine all on their own.

Kate hadn’t learned her lesson, though.

“After I found out about Aaron, I called my mom, crying, and she reminded me how guys just . . . change sometimes. They start out great and then there’s this whole dark ugly other side to them.”

It had been like turning on a light. She could suddenly see all the little ways she’d been broken down over the year she and Aaron had spent together. She’d dumped him the very next day, swearing she’d never let the wool be pulled over her eyes again. Her self-esteem might have taken another beating, but she’d promised herself it was the last time she ever accepted so little from a man.

And then Rylan had come along. He’d shown her what she’d been missing.

“My dad did it to my mother, and Aaron did it to me. They started out so nice and then they turned into these assholes, and I . . .” She could say this out loud. Thanks to Rylan, she could. “I deserve better.”

She’d found it. Right here.

But Rylan’s throat bobbed, and his hands went still, the little caressing motions he’d been making against her spine suddenly stopping. For a long moment he said nothing, and she sat there.

Bare for him the way that he had been for her that afternoon. And waiting. Waiting . . .

He sucked in a long breath, then let her go, his gaze burning as he took her face between his hands and kissed her. Her cheeks and her brow and her eyes and finally, finally her mouth. Drawing back he swore, “You do. You deserve the best.” He hugged her again, and it was the warmest embrace she’d ever known.

For what felt like forever, she shook in his arms, letting him soak up the old, lingering hurt that had been weighing her down for so long. He murmured vague apologies into her hair, and she let him.

She felt more warm—more loved, sitting there, naked and held by a veritable stranger than she had in her entire time with Aaron. Maybe her entire life.

“You know what?” she said, once she’d gotten her breath back.

“What?”

“I wish it had been you.” Christ, she did. “That you’d been my first. That you’d shown me how—how incredible it could be.”

How differently would things have gone with Aaron, with that random one-night stand, if she had known? Would there even have been anyone else? If she could’ve had Rylan first? If he’d pushed away all the damage her father had done with careful hands and kind words.

If she could have kept him?

He made a little shhing sound, stroking his hand up and down the bare stretch of her spine.

She buried her face against his neck. “You just—you make me feel really safe, you know?”

Like she could let go. Like she could touch and be touched.

Like she was worth it.

“Yeah,” he said, clutching her close. “I know.”

Aiming the remote at the TV, Rylan clicked the volume down to almost nothing. For the past half hour, he’d been slowly softening his voice as he narrated the romance taking place in French across the screen. But Kate’s breaths had finally evened out. As the television went quiet, she snuggled in closer but otherwise didn’t stir.

He left the screen on as he lay there with her. The pale blue light washed across her skin, making her face seem to glow. Her head was resting on his shoulder, her hair soft between his fingers. Beneath the sheet, all of her nakedness was pressed to all of this.

And he didn’t deserve this. Not the tiniest fraction of it. His heart squeezed, and he had to pull his hand back from her hair, had to cover his mouth with his fist to keep the grunt of distress from falling from his lips.

This whole time, he’d been sitting around, feeling morally superior to the jackasses who had dared to touch her and not make her come. God. When she’d told him the rest of the story, it had felt like the floor was falling out from underneath him.

Like the moment when his father had been subpoenaed. When Rylan’s eyes had been opened.

He was just like his father in so many ways. Since birth, people had been telling him that. Every step of the way, he’d been groomed to fill the old man’s shoes, and it had chafed. The path that had been laid out for him, each decision he should’ve gotten to make on his own already predetermined. But it had been worth it. His father was a paragon, a monument, everything a man could hope to be. Everything Rylan was supposed to be.

When Kate had talked about her dad, her ex, those men who had seemed to be so good and who had turned out to be dark and ugly . . .

That day in his father’s office, when the doors had burst open and the agents had filed in.

Dark and ugly. Those words didn’t even begin to explain it.

Suddenly, all his father’s faults had been laid out. His charm was his philandering, his business sense his greed. Aggression turned to cruelty and callousness, and Rylan had seen them all. He’d seen them in himself.

When Kate saw them in Rylan. When she found out who he’d been in line to become . . .

His lungs squeezed so hard he could scarcely breathe.

When she found out he’d been lying to her all along.

He bit down into his knuckle, trying to force the bile back into his throat.

Rylan hadn’t lied to Kate. Not once had he said something explicitly untrue. But that wouldn’t save him. He was just as bad as her asshole of an ex, as her dad. The ones who’d made her look at a man who was extending his hand and believe he was a threat.

Rylan was that threat. He was a liar.

And he hated himself even more than he had before.

A shiver ran through him. Kate shifted, and he froze. All she did was slide her knee across his thigh, though, letting her hand rest higher on his chest.

She trusted him.

Fuck. He curled his hands up into fists, digging his nails into the meat of his palms, but it didn’t help. A good man would wake her up right now and tell her everything. He’d let her make her own decisions. He’d watch her walk away.

And Rylan just . . . couldn’t. Her face would crumple, and it would kill him. She’d been so skittish when she’d met him, and the idea of putting that fear in her eyes again made him want to take every single thing back. Every word and every touch. And he would never do that. Not in a million years.

What was he supposed to do?

Except be as good to her as he could.

They only had another couple of days, and if he could keep his conscience quiet, he could spend those days with her. He could shower her with all the affection and care she deserved. Then at the end of it, she’d go, and she would never have to know. She could keep some kind of faith that maybe there was a guy out there who wouldn’t screw her over.

He couldn’t decide if it was the most selfish plan or the most selfless one he’d ever had.

Her body gave another little restless twitch, and his heart ached. But he didn’t wake her. He didn’t let the confessions welling up inside his chest pour out.

His decision had been made.

He’d do what he had to do. He’d stay quiet, and he’d adore her the best he could. He wouldn’t hurt her. Not any more than he had to.

Picking up the remote again, he turned the television off, bathing them both in darkness. With a murmur, she turned over, and he followed, fitting his front to the curve of her spine. He buried his face against her hair and wrapped her up inside his arms, closing his eyes and breathing her in.

But sleep didn’t come to him for a long, long time.