She cried when I told her about how I found out my mother was dead. My dad was away on an urgent business trip, so our housekeeper told me, between my hiccups and sniffs.

There were a lot of reasons why I didn’t tell her the whole truth. The one I’d kept to myself all those years. The reasons now weren’t that different than what they’d been back then.

I was still ashamed I hadn’t realized what Dad and Jo were talking about doing when I was nine. I’d felt guilty all these years, wondering if I could’ve saved my mom, warned her, told someone.

Which was probably stupid because who would’ve believed a nine-year-old.

And afterward, if someone did believe me, what then? My mom would still be dead and it could’ve been even worse for me. The shame, the pity, the gossip if there was a trial. When your dad sends his mistress’s brother to pull the plug on your mother? Yeah, there was no coming back from that sob story. I would’ve been forever labeled as “that poor kid.”

I wasn’t anyone’s “poor kid.” I was a rich man. Powerful in people’s eyes, and I intended to keep it that way.

I trusted Emilia. I knew I could confide in her. She’d kept our secret under wraps from everyone in high school. I trusted her to keep the one about my scars too.

The way she looked at me when we sat on her drop cloth—I was pretty fucking sure my nine-hundred-dollar slacks were stained with paint—made me want to tell her the rest. But I didn’t want her to think about me what I used to think about myself. That I’d made a mistake in keeping quiet. That none of it would’ve happened if I’d told someone. That I could’ve stopped it all before it started. That I was stupid. Weak.

“I wish you’d have given me more of a chance to be there for you when I lived there,” she murmured, looking down at her thighs and fighting more tears.

I wanted to touch her, but I didn’t want a hug. I needed to fuck her until every inch of her flesh was raw.

I smiled politely. “See? We all have our cherry-blossom story.” I looked around, suddenly anxious to stop talking. “Where the fuck is Rosie, anyway?”

I was starting to feel the way I did before, when she lived so close I could see into her bedroom window. I couldn’t pin that feeling down. Not then and not now. I just knew that it was unacceptable. I had enough fucking fires to put out in my personal life without creating another shit-storm.

She muttered something about calling her sister and checking up on her and got up exactly as the doorbell chimed. She twisted her head to me and quirked an eyebrow, as if to say what are the odds? and sashayed to the door to get our food.

It was the delivery guy. The smell of our hot, spicy food carried all the way to where I sat while she made small talk with the guy. Typical Emilia, nice to everyone and their mothers.

Emilia arranged some plates on our makeshift picnic blanket and opened a bottle of wine that she’d probably bought from the Dollar Tree, but dinner was nicer than the nicest ones I’d had in the last couple of years. We ate in silence, and that was okay, because Emilia wasn’t the type of girl who hurried to fill the air with meaningless chatter. She liked silence.

Like me.

Like my mom.

Then again, it’d been a while since I’d sat down for dinner with someone who wasn’t one of the Four HotHoles or my stepmother.

“Tell me something bad about you,” I said, out of nowhere.

“Something bad?” She took a swig straight from the bottle and placed it on the floor next to her thigh, wiggling her pursed lips from side to side. She was thinking.

“Yeah. Something that’s less noble than Little Miss Perfect helping her sick sister by working two jobs.”

She rolled her eyes at me but smiled, struggling to come up with something. When she did, she seemed half-elated. “I paint with oil paint!”

“Holy fuck, that’s badass.” I bit my lower lip and shook my head.

She laughed and swatted my shoulder—again—and yes, Emilia LeBlanc wanted to fuck me as much as I wanted to fuck her. It was written all over her body language.

“Let me finish! I’m cautious. I take my time. Oils take a century to dry. You need to open the windows and let them air dry, but I like how the colors are vibrant and the painting looks so real. Oil paint is actually pretty toxic. It’s terrible for Rosie’s lungs, but I still use it because I hate acrylic.” She sighed, blushing a little.

Hot damn. Help was admitting to doing something selfish. She was definitely cracking.

I placed my hands over my temples and shook my head, feigning shock. “Mind-blowing shit, LeBlanc. Next thing you’ll tell me you pay your taxes after April fifteenth.”

“I like to live on the edge.” She shrugged and sucked a noodle between her lips, using chopsticks.

I almost shoved away the paper takeout containers and pinned her to the drop cloth. Almost.

But it was becoming clearer to me that I wouldn’t be able to hold myself back for long. I wanted that pussy, and I deserved it. It was mine.

“I’m not all good,” she said, slurping more food. I loved how she ate like she didn’t give a fuck that I was watching her.

“Nobody’s all good, just like nobody’s all bad.” I licked my lower lip, and she did the same. She dropped her chopsticks and chanced another glance at me. I continued eating, pretending I didn’t give a damn.

“Sometimes I think you’re all bad,” she said, but I knew she didn’t really mean it. I knew Emilia LeBlanc well enough to know she saw the goodness in everyone. Even assholes like me.