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“Did I?” Phoebe felt like this was her chance to make things right, but she didn’t know how. She didn’t know what she wanted or what to make right. “Jonathan, what did I do wrong?”

“I’m not going to spell it out for you.”

“Then how can I fix things?”

“You’re not that dense.”

“Hey.”

“I said you’re not.”

“Which implies that I am acting dense.”

“Well.” Jonathan held up his hands as if to say, You said it, not me.

“Jonathan.”

“Phoebe.”

“All I said was that I’m happy I get to benefit from your talents, and you freaked out as if I’d said something terrible.”

“I don’t think I freaked out.”

“You left. You said you couldn’t work with me anymore. I’d call that freaking out.”

“I call it protecting myself.”

“From what?”

“From you.”

Somehow, over the last minute or two, they had migrated closer and closer. Now they stood face-to-face, both breathing hard. Jonathan’s face was so close to hers, Phoebe could see the pinpricks of stubble on his chin, the light freckle on his bottom lip. She could feel the warmth of his breath. It felt like every rise and fall of her chest was linked to his.

She asked softly, gazing bravely into his eyes, “Why do you need to protect yourself from me, Jonathan?”

He steeled himself—Phoebe saw his jaw clench—but then he sighed, and his posture relaxed.

“You may be acting dense, Phoebe, but you’re one of the smartest people I know. So I think you might be able to put it together.”

Phoebe felt like her heart was trying to escape her chest. On some level, she realized that she was being given another chance. A second—or third or fourth—chance to not screw things up. To grab hold of this man whom she connected with more than anyone she’d ever met, to see what was possible, to not let him go.

“I know I made a mistake.” Phoebe’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “Back then.”

Jonathan staggered. Whatever he had expected her to do or say, it wasn’t that. He reached for a kitchen chair and sat down. She sat in the chair across the table from him.

“I was young and—” She stopped herself from saying young and stupid. Because she hadn’t been. She’d been naive and inexperienced, but she hadn’t had a crystal ball. She couldn’t have known that she would never again meet anyone like Jonathan Lee. “I didn’t realize how special what we had was until it was gone.”

“Why didn’t you ever think to tell me that?”

“What, I should have called you up at some point in the last eight years and said, ‘I’m sorry; I was wrong’?”

“Yeah. Why not?”

“What would you have said?”

Jonathan looked at her evenly. “I can think of a few things I would have done.”

A flare of heat rushed through Phoebe’s body.