“None of them matternow. I don’t like to look back, Min.” He stroked her cheeks with his thumbs. “But if it’s important to you, then I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” He brushed his lips over hers. “How about this? You tell me about your last relationship and I’ll tell you about mine. And then I will spend the rest of the night proving to you that nothing that came before matters. Deal?”
She smiled and bit her lip. She was beyond beautiful like this – vulnerable and nervous and looking up at him like maybe he could capture the moon for her. Fuck if he wouldn’t try.
“Okay,” she agreed.
He pulled her back against his chest, nestling her beneath his chin. He debated how much to tell her, but he knew he would tell her anything. He wanted to strip himself bare and show her every messy, imperfect part of himself. He wanted her to know all of his flaws and still want him anyway. It was too much to ask, but that didn’t change the desire.
She took a deep breath. “I’ve never been in a relationship.”
“What?”Why is she lying to me?“Min, I know you were involved with Bobby.”
She fluttered her hand dismissively. “Bobby is one of my best friends. And last year we were both sad and confused and decided to try to feel better by sleeping together. But that’s all it ever was.”
“But in Italy –”
“We spent one weekend together. Just one. And we both knew after the first day – hell, the first hour – that it wasn’t right…” she trailed off and his whole body tensed waiting for her to finish that thought. With a determined deep breath, she plunged on, “Anyway, when the weekend was over, we both decided it was a mistake. He’s a good friend. Nothing more.”
“Okay. And before Bobby?” He didn’t really want to know. Did he?
She sighed. “I have a talent for choosing emotionally unavailable men. My therapist would say that I seek out men who can’t commit because I think they’re going to leave me in the end anyway. Daddy issues and all that jazz. And if no one gets too close, no one can hurt me.”
“And what do you say?” he asked, his heart squeezing at the way she tried to make light of all the times she’d been let down.
She shrugged. Her voice was strained. It was clearly a hard thing for her to talk about. “Maybe she’s right. I’ve never been with someone who wanted to actually be in a relationship… at least not with me.” He could feel her trying to burrow deeper into his chest to avoid the truth she’d laid at his feet.
“Fucking idiots,” he growled, pulling her closer, a hand curling over her ass.
And the closer he held her, the more she relaxed, melting into him. He wrapped himself around her, as if he could make up for the jerks who had come before him. For the first time in a long time, he was struck by how young she was, how inexperienced.
She dragged the tip of her nose across his chest. “Your turn.”
Liam was silent for a long time as he considered how to tell her about Emma.Rip off the band aid.
“I was engaged.”
Her entire body tensed against him. He stroked her back, gentling her the way he would an anxious animal, and continued.
“Emma and I met in prep school. Our fathers had been friends and so we were friends for a long time, until one day many years later, we were more. There was no real passion. We got along and we’d known each other for so long… it just seemed like the thing to do. We were both living in Boston, far from home, and my father had just died. I think we were just… comfortable. But it was clear we didn’t want the same things.”
“What do you mean?” she whispered.
“Emma wanted a fantasy, to be the wife of a famous conductor and spend her days planning galas and opening night parties. She expected that we would move back to Amsterdam and I would take over where my father left off and become the conductor of the orchestra there,” Even now, the thought made his stomach roil. “And I wanted to stay in the US with Noah, my new family. I wanted to build something of my own, not just follow in my father’s footsteps. He… wasn’t a good man.”
“How so?”
He hadn’t planned on telling her this, not yet at least, but he pushed on. “He blamed everyone but himself for his inability to succeed – most of all my mother. He never considered that it was how much he drank, or that he slept with the wives and daughters of all the board members. He could have been one of the greats, and he knew it. I want to do what he never did, achieve the things he threw away. But not where everyone remembers howhewas. Not whereIremember.”
She pressed a kiss to his chest and the tension in his body relaxed at the simple gesture.
“Noah got me an interview for the position here, and Emma didn’t want to come with me. It was a relief in the end,” he confessed, “to finally admit we weren’t right for each other.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, the earnestness in her voice cracking his heart open.
“I’m not.” He buried his hand in her hair and gripped the back of her neck. “I cannot tell you that you are the first woman in my life,” he said. “But you are the first woman who feelsright. Andthatis all that matters.”
She wrapped him in her arms, planting kisses along his shoulder, his collarbone. She painted the column of his throat with her lips. His heart squeezed as he tangled his legs with hers, burying his face in her neck, his lips moving against her skin as he spoke.
“I’ve spent my whole life looking for you, contessa.” He kissed along her jaw, hiding his face from her. He didn’t think he could bear to look her in the eyes just then, not when he was this cracked open.
