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“No, Alicia. I never wanted any of it. Marriage. Kids. The whole happily-ever-after bullshit. I grew up watching my father destroy his family. The man we were all supposed to be able to trust. That guy who was supposed to love us unconditionally? He was a philanderer and a fucking criminal, and I’ve spent my entire life being told how much like him I am.”

Bitter laughter bubbled out of me as I shook my head. “See, I’m smart too. Just like him, and I’m ambitious, and I’m difficult, and if you tell me no, I’ll find another way. In business, at least. Oh, and I look exactly like him, which is great, so I know what I am. I don’t need you to tell me, too, but if you wanted to know why I didn’t tell you he was getting out, that’s the reason. I didn’t trust you.”

“I’m not telling you anything about who or what you are,” she said quietly, her chin finally coming up again. “I’m also not going to let you shut down on me, Holden. I see where this is going. I know what you’re doing.”

I snorted. “Newsflash, honey. I might not know you, but you don’t know me either.”

Instead of shying away from me again, she released her arms, dropping them back to her sides, her shoulders even squaring as she slowly closed the distance between us while she spoke. “You think that because you’re afraid of becoming your father, that means you already are him.”

“That’s not what I said.”

She shrugged. “You didn’t have to say it. It’s still true.”

“It also doesn’t mean you’re right.”

“Oh, but I am. I know I am.” She caught my jaw and turned my face back toward her when I tried turning away. “Maybe you’re worried about becoming him, but you don’t have to be. From what I read tonight, your father was a selfish prick who got himself in trouble because he got greedy, but you’ve done more for me in the last few weeks than anyone else has in years.”

“So?”

“So you’ve done so many things for me you probably don’t even realize I noticed, but I did. Even if you didn’t ask for recognition. You’re the furthest thing from greedy I’ve ever seen and you’re definitely not selfish.”

As she said it, she wrapped her arms around my neck and pressed herself up against me, her lips moving to the crook of my neck. “You can’t hide from me, Holden. I won’t let you.”

She pressed a soft, gentle kiss to my skin, working her way up my throat to my mouth. For a second, I completely forgot why we’d gotten into it in the first place, my eyes sliding shut and my brain going blank.

“Alicia…” I trailed off, swallowing hard as I wrapped my fingers around her hips. “Don’t do this.”

She pushed her fingers into my hair, her eyes intent on mine. “I see you for who you really are, Holden Thayer. Even if you don’t see it yet yourself, and I don’t want you to go, or to hide, or to crawl back into yourself. I want you to stay. Right here. With me.”

That old instinct reared up to pull away, to leave, or to make some snide remark that would hurt her enough to make her let go of me, but then she kissed me again and I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her closer instead.

CHAPTER 34

ALICIA

Tasha had headed to her mother’s house to give Holden and me some privacy to talk once he got back, but since that hadn’t happened yet, I’d had a bit of time to think. As the initial shock of learning what I had wore off, I’d slowly realized that this was the piece of the puzzle I’d been missing.

It had never quite made sense to me why Holden was so jaded and guarded when he was supposed to have grown up like a prince. Part of me had thought maybe he’d just felt used by people so often that he’d shut down. I’d thought perhaps his upbringing had been so gilded and uptight that he’d lost faith in the humanity of humans.

While that had never quite explained the extent of it, I’d figured that eventually, one day, he might tell me the rest, but in the meantime, I’d thought it was more important to get to know him for who he was inside.

As I kissed him now, however, feeling the uncertainty, the hesitation, and the genuine fear of this man who was always so confident, my heart ached for him. In a way, Holden and I had this one specific fear in common—we were afraid to let people in because we didn’t know if we’d be able to survive losing them.

Maybe we’d developed that fear for very different reasons, but the crux of it was the same. Loving someone meant risking heartbreak if you lost them.

In my parents’ case, however, they hadn’t chosen to leave. The people in Holden’s life had.

When I felt him start to withdraw again, I nipped at his lower lip and tightened my grip on his hair. “Stay with me, Holden. I’m not leaving you. I’m never leaving you. You can’t scare me away.”

He slowed the kiss for a beat, then crashed back into me, groaning when I kissed him back just as hard. “Where’s Tasha?”

“Out.”

“Thank fuck.”

Without breaking the kiss, he lifted me clean off my feet and carried me to the stairs. When I realized we were going all the way up, I squealed and wrapped my arms more securely around him, hooking my ankles together behind his hips.

He grunted whenever my mouth left his, immediately claiming my lips again as soon as he could. He was louder tonight too, moaning into our kisses instead of keeping it all bottled up. A tingle ran down my spine at the thought that maybe he was letting them escape because he couldn’t hold back. Or even better, maybe he didn’t want to.