“It’s the last week of school—the upstairs bar would normally be packed. Do I even want to know what you had to do to arrange this?” she asked.

“Let’s just say that the manager and I came to an understanding.” Actually, he’d told the manager that he’d give him half the bar’s expected food and beverage sales for the night plus 20 percent, plus an extra five thousand bucks for setting up the place per his exact instructions. But she didn’t need to know that.

He saw the back door to the bar open, and a guy in his early twenties waved at the limo. Kyle looked at Rylann. “Ready to go back in time?”

She laced her fingers through his. “In case I forget to tell you later, this was the best first date I ever had.”

“Did anyone ever tell you that you can be really sweet when you want to be?”

“I try not to let too many people know about that. It cuts against the bad-ass prosecutor reputation.”

He tugged her hand and pulled her closer. “I’ve already seen the Bozo the Clown hair, counselor. We have no more secrets.” With a quick kiss, he pushed open the door of the limo and stepped out. After checking to confirm that the alley was empty, he helped Rylann out and led her to the bar’s back door.

The manager grinned as he shuffled them through, then extended his hand to Kyle once they were inside. “Joe Kohler. I’ve been stoked about this all week. Frankly, I thought the whole Twitter thing was hysterical.” He shook Rylann’s hand next. “And the mystery lady.” He pointed to Kyle. “Whoever you are, you better treat this guy better than the last girl did.” He gestured toward the stairs behind them. “Follow me.”

Kyle shrugged when he saw Rylann’s bemused expression. “One of the high-fivers.” With his hand in hers, they followed Joe up the narrow staircase to the second floor.

“I brought in one of the waitresses to help me set up the place according to your instructions,” Joe told him. “Figured we could use a woman’s touch with this sort of thing.”

Rylann raised an eyebrow at Kyle as they got to the top of the stairs. “Instructions?”

Joe led them around a short corridor, into the main bar area. “Hope you like it.”

Kyle rounded the corner with Rylann, pleased when he saw they’d gotten it just right. White pillar candles—over a hundred of them—covered the tabletops and bar, casting the entire space in a warm, romantic glow. In the far back corner of the bar was a table covered with a white linen tablecloth, two crystal glasses, and an ice bucket that chilled a bottle of Perrier-Jouet Fleur de Champagne Rose—a recommendation from his sister, the wine expert.

With a stunned expression, Rylann took it all in. “This is…incredible.” She walked over to the table with the champagne, then looked over her shoulder at Kyle. “This is the table I was sitting at that night.”

Nodding, Kyle headed over. “I’d watched you for a while before making my move. There was a guy with red hair sitting across the table from you, and I was trying to decide if he was your boyfriend.”

Rylann smiled. “That was Shane. God, I haven’t spoken to him in years.” Her eyes swept over the place, the flickering candles having transformed the normally semi-seedy college bar into a romantic setting. She stepped closer and curled her fingers into his shirt. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Kyle brushed the hair out of her eyes. “Anytime, counselor.”

“I CHOSE POORLY,” Rylann said, eying Kyle’s plate from across the table. “I should’ve gone with the curly fries instead of the regular.”

“Yep, you should’ve.” Kyle picked up one curly fry and generously set it on her plate.

She looked offended. “One fry? That’s all I get?”

“You’ve got to live with the consequences of your decisions. How else are you going to learn?” He smiled and popped another curly fry into his mouth.

The Perrier-Jouet had begun to take effect, bringing a pretty flush to Rylann’s cheeks. While normally not a huge champagne drinker, even Kyle had to admit this one wasn’t half-bad. True, one probably didn’t often pair a three-hundred-dollar bottle of bubbly with cheeseburgers and French fries, but that was about as fine as the dining got at the Clybourne.

Kyle’s cell phone buzzed with a new message, and he checked to make sure it wasn’t Sean, the executive from Silicon Valley he’d hired to be his second in command at Rhodes Network Consulting. “Sorry. My business line has been flooded with calls ever since the Twitter announcement,” he said to Rylann. “Sean’s going through all the messages now. I told him to call me if there’s anything that can’t wait until tomorrow.”

She leaned in interestedly, reaching for her champagne glass. “So what’s the next step for you?”

“I set up meetings and begin pitching to potential clients. The two graduates I hired from U of I start work on Monday, and then we’ll be ready to rock and roll. After that, I cross my fingers and hope there are some people eager to get in bed with the Twitter Terrorist.” He flashed her a cheeky grin. “Metaphorically speaking.”

Rylann cocked her head inquisitively. “I’ve been curious about something. What was it that made you change your mind about the corporate world? Back when we first met, I remember you saying that you wanted to teach.”

It was a perfectly innocuous question. And Kyle knew he could answer it vaguely, the same way he’d answered that question many times before. But as he sat across from Rylann, one day away from the nine-year anniversary of his mother’s death, he thought maybe it was time to open up about that part of his life. He kept telling himself that he wanted all of Rylann—perhaps, then, he needed to let down a few of his own walls.

So he cleared his throat, trying to decide where to start. “My perspective on things changed after my mother died. It was a rough time for my family,” he began.

KYLE. THERE’S BEEN an accident.

For as long as he lived, he’d never forget those words.

He had known instantly from his father’s voice that it was serious. His grip had tightened around the phone. “What happened?”

“It’s your mother. A truck hit her car when she was coming home from a drama club rehearsal. They think the driver might have fallen asleep at the wheel—I don’t know, they haven’t told me much. They brought her into the emergency room thirty minutes ago, and she’s in surgery now.”

Kyle’s stomach dropped. Surgery. “But…Mom’s going to be okay, right?”

The silence that followed lasted an eternity.

“I’ve sent the jet to pick you up at Willard,” his father said, referring to the university’s airport. “A helicopter will meet you at O’Hare and take you directly to the hospital. They said we could use the heliport.”

Kyle’s voice was a whisper. “Dad.”

“It’s bad, son. I feel like I should be doing something, but they…they say there’s nothing…”

Shock began to set in at that very moment, when Kyle realized his father was crying.

The drive to the airport, the forty-minute flight to Chicago, and the helicopter ride to the hospital’s rooftop had all been a blur. Some hospital staff member—Kyle couldn’t have picked his face out of a lineup two minutes later—rushed him to a private waiting room in the trauma surgical unit. He’d burst through the door and found his father standing there with an ashen expression.

He shook his head. “I’m so sorry, son.”

Kyle took a step back. “No.”

A tiny, drained voice spoke out from behind the door. “I didn’t make it in time, either.”

Kyle turned and saw Jordan standing in the corner of the room. She had tears running down her cheeks.

“Jordo.” He grabbed her and pulled her into a tight embrace. “I just spoke to Mom yesterday,” he whispered against the top of his sister’s head. “I called her after my exam.” She’d been so damn proud of him.

His heart squeezed painfully tight as his eyes began to burn.