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“And I don’t pretend to be. Though I have been working on it, as you know.”

Aster clicked his phone on again, unlocking it. He opened an application and stared at the screen. “I got an email,” he said. “Earlier. The business I was dealing with on my birthday has been settled. Almost four years in the making. You know it’s a big deal when it’s got bankers working on a Sunday.”

“It was . . . settled badly?” Molly asked, struggling to make sense of his mood with minimal details.

He shook his head. “It was exactly what I needed. And so, it felt like maybe it was finally time to . . .” he trailed off. With a step closer, Molly could make out what had Aster so transfixed. He had the contact information open for Orion Bishop. His father.

Aster’s thumb hovered over the delete button. Then, with a deep breath, he clicked it. Several swipes later, and a similar entry for a Vivienne Bishop also met its end.

He shoved his phone in his pocket as soon as it was done.

“You were disowned,” Molly finally said, voice so quiet she wondered if he heard her.

But he gave a curt nod. “I demanded it.”

Molly’s face scrunched as she looked back at him. From how Justine had worded it, Molly hadn’t realized Aster had a choice in the matter.

“I don’t regret it,” he continued. “Not for a single moment.” He reached out to her, fingers finding her forearms as he pulled her in, part hug, part grounding. She leaned into his chest. “I refused ownership of my trust. Transferred it back to the family accounts. My parents have been dragging their feet on it, but I won’t have or use their money,” he said against the top of her head. “Quite the opposite of embezzling, in fact.”

Molly let out a soft, sad laugh against his chest. She leaned back enough to look up into his face. “What happened?”

Aster pulled their entwined hands to chest level, tracing idle patterns against her skin, skimming her palm and the scar that lingered there.

“A lot of things. A lifetime of them, really. I think I realized at a certain point that survival and status quo became mutually exclusive. They’ve been particularly unhappy with almost every choice I’ve made since I started making choices for myself. The beginning of the end was probably when they found out I’d sabotaged my own college essay.”

Molly pulled back in shock, looking up at him. “You what? Is that why you were waitlisted?”

“Yeah,” he breathed, offering her a sad smile that said he’d long come to terms with that decision. “The school ended up letting me rewrite it. Well, my father made a very generous donation, and I was then graciously offered the option to rewrite it. And I had some regrets, so I did. But I was feeling angry and spiteful when I applied. It was the only place I was allowed to apply.”

“And this?” Molly asked, holding up her palm. In the dim light, she couldn’t even see the scar there.

Aster’s face contorted, a flash of pain overtaking it.

“We tried doing a Christmas dinner with them. Convince them to—I don’t know, anything. To not hate the idea of me being happy, I suppose. You tried to carry enough optimism for the both of us. To say it was an unmitigated disaster may be an understatement. My father spent the whole dinner lecturing me on my many offenses. In particular, how I didn’t take the position he’d offered me at his company. And I think my mother had imagined you as a stupid, graceless gold digger. Her open surprise that you weren’t might have been more offensive than my father’s lecture.”

Aster cradled her face in his hands, insistent on eye contact. In another context, a different conversation, it might have been the prelude to a kiss.

“My father always used the family money as a threat—take the job or lose my trust; get my life back on track or lose my trust; stop wasting my time, heavily implied with you, or lose my trust. And I snapped. I told him to keep every last fucking penny. I was so mad, so out of control, I threw a glass at the wall,” he said, voice strangled in his throat. “I’d seen my father do it a hundred times throughout my life, shattering a glass when he didn’t get his way. It had always looked so cathartic and powerful. But I’d never felt weaker.” Regret practically rolled off Aster in a dense fog. “And you’re so helpful and kind and—you tried to clean it up. And it cut you.”

“That sounds like a really terrible thing to go through,” she said, squeezing his middle as she pressed her cheek to his chest, “and I’m sorry I can’t remember it, if only to help carry the load.”

Aster’s breath coasted against her hair. “Don’t apologize to me, not for that. You—for so many reasons—don’t owe me an apology for that.” He took a deep breath. “Could I say it?” he asked quietly. “Just once? Just for now?”

It took a beat for Molly to digest his question, to figure out what she thought he meant. “It’s a lot of pressure, you know,” she said instead of answering, fixated on the pearlescent shirt button beyond her nose. Even through the cotton fabric, his chest felt like fire against her cheek. “It’s one thing to be married, and happy, and—” She broke off, having to clear her throat. “But it’s another thing altogether to give up your family resources and connections and money.”

“I didn’t even have to think about it.” His grip on her tightened, fingers dancing along her spine.

“You can say it,” she whispered into his shirt. “I think I’d like to hear it.”

She felt the moment he registered her words, because his chest shifted from a flat plain to a concave entity, shoulders pitched forward as he practically buckled. He stooped, his head finding refuge in the crook of her neck, breath drifting across her skin.

His words ran like prisoners, held captive in his mind and mouth, just waiting for their moment to escape.

“I love you,” he said. “More than my name and more than my money, more than all of it.”

And she believed him. She felt it. So much so that she finally noticed the quiet tears she’d shed, wetting his shirt. And as beautiful as it was to be loved as Aster loved her, she also ached, nearly collapsing under the need to know how they’d gotten here.

The want for her memories, for knowledge of her past, swelled inside her. The only thing Molly could think to do with all that want was to release it, turn it outward.