* * *

Sam

“You don’t owe me an apology,” Liz says softly.

I won’t let myself be spooked and ruin our chance together.

After I called someone to come pick up Asia, I went to my parents’ with my head spinning. I was determined to put what Asia said out of my mind until after Christmas, but then I overheard my parents fighting. Mom kept her voice low, but I could hear her through the study door, could hear the hysteria that laced the edges of her words.

“You expect me to believe you aren’t sleeping with her?”

“I haven’t touched her.”

“This is the worst possible time. Think of the campaign.”

Maybe that was the hardest part for me to swallow. My mom, his wife, when confronted with the possibility of her husband cheating on her again, was more concerned about the effect of an affair on his political campaign than about the effect on their marriage.

And maybe two years ago he was more concerned about his political campaign than about his own son’s child.

Liz is staring at me, her brow wrinkled, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip.

“I’m in love with you.” The words just slip out, as if I can’t hold them in anymore.

“What?”

I answer with my mouth, pressing her against the wall as my hands go into her hair and I kiss her hard. I’m terrified of what’s going to happen to my family. But the taste of Liz, the feel of her mouth under mine, it relaxes me.

My hand slides between her legs as I drop my mouth to her neck, nibbling and sucking until she drops her head to the side to give me better access.

“I’m in love with you.” It’s the truth, but I hate how vulnerable saying it makes me feel, as if that one sentence has the power to catapult me back to a time in my life when my heart wasn’t my own. I needed her after our first night together. She had my heart in her hands and told me she wasn’t interested.

I don’t want to go back there, to that kind of vulnerability. Not for anything. Except for her. I might just go back for Liz. Because once a woman owns a man’s heart, it never really returns to him.

She attempts a smile but it wobbles on the edges. She wants to believe me. “You can’t be in love with me. I’ve screwed up so many times. And I’m so scared that once you realize—”

“You think I haven’t screwed up? That I’m not scared?” I hold her face in my hands and look into her big, blue eyes. “I’m terrified every day I’m with you. I’m scared of what it means that I wake up every day and you’re the first thing on my mind. I’m scared that I can’t remember what it felt like to spend weeks at a time without seeing you. I’m scared of how badly I need you and of how completely you’ve stolen my heart. But mostly I’m terrified that I’m not good enough for you, and that even though you deserve better, I have no idea how to live in a world where I don’t get to smell your hair or hold you in my arms.”

She stares at me, lips parted, eyes wide.

“Say something,” I whisper.

“I love you too.”

The words lift a weight off my lungs, and for the first time in days I’m able to take a deep breath. “Then nothing else matters.” I lower my head to kiss her.

She stops me with a finger to my lips. “We need to talk first,” she says.

My phone rings, and I ignore it. I can’t talk to him right now.

Liz and I stare at each other.

“I messed up,” she says. “Being with you is a dream, and if I’d had any idea this was possible, I wouldn’t have signed up for all those stupid dating sites.”

“I don’t care about that.” My phone rings again, and this time I look at it. The last call was from Connor, but this time it’s Della. “Sorry,” I say to Liz before answering. “Hello?”

“You need to get back to the house right away,” Della says. “It’s an emergency.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Sam

“Thank you for coming,” Connor says, closing the door behind me.

We’re in my father’s home office, and I’m pissed. I broke the speed limit the entire way here, sure I was going to pull up to the house and see an ambulance taking away my mom or something. But everyone’s fine. Connor just wanted to talk. Screw that.

“What is this about?” I look at my phone to see if Liz has texted. I wonder if I could talk her into coming by my place tonight. I could cook for her again—something with that red sauce she loves so much, and wine. And after I could take her to bed and—

“Sit down.” Connor nods to a seat, but I notice he doesn’t sit. He’s already pacing the length of the room, his face drawn, and his eyes tired. “We need to do some damage control.”

Those words snap me out of my dopy haze. “Leave Asia alone. You’ve done enough.”

He frowns. “This isn’t about Asia.”

He found out about Dad’s affair. Whatever it is Connor needs to tell me, I don’t want to know. It’s his job to take care of this stuff. I want to be left out of it. My father likes women. A lot. And my father has a little trouble keeping his dick in his pants. This wouldn’t surprise me about the average politician, and given my father’s history, it shouldn’t surprise me about him. But it does. He’s supposed to love my mother and no one else. Forever.

“It’s about Lizzy,” Connor says. “She’s been using Something Real, Ian’s dating site.”