“Breathe, Dani,” he murmurs.

I didn’t even realize I wasn’t until he said it. I inhale deeply just to let it out, my breath expelling in a shaky exhale. “Why did you do that?”

“You looked like you needed saving. Was I wrong?”

I swallow, acutely aware of his fingers trailing down the length of my arm, stopping at my hand to curl it in his so that he can bring it to his shoulder to rest there. I take another deep breath, shaking my head.

“You’re not…not wrong.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“Am I allowed to say no?”

Ezra’s gaze is soft, searching my face. “You can always say no, Dani. But do you really want to?”

“I…” The air in my lungs seems to expand, making my chest tight, and that feeling of the room spinning hasn’t entirely subsided. “Grant is my ex.”

“I gathered,” he offers gently.

I arch a brow. “How?”

“You looked…devastated. For a moment. I have to assume the only person who could put that look on your face is someone who hurt you very badly.”

How does he know that? How is it that Ezra can take one look at me and see all the things I so desperately try to keep hidden?

We continue to sway, the warmth of his palm on my hip a soothing presence, and I let my eyes drop to his chest, focusing on the silk of his tie. “We met in college. He sat next to me in Civil Procedure. He was drenched from the rain. Looked like a wet puppy.” My brow furrows, remembering. “He apologized for dripping all over the floor near my desk.”

“How long were you together?”

“Right up into third year. We had all these plans…We were going to…” I feel the traitorous sting of tears prickling at the corners of my eyes, and my neck heats with embarrassment over letting Ezra see me this weak. “It’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” Ezra says softly, soothingly. “Not if it makes you look like you do right now.”

I shut my eyes tight, getting a handle on my emotions before opening them again. “He got a job offer from a big firm in Los Angeles. Someone his father had connections with.” I laugh humorlessly. “Stupidly, when he first told me that he was going to take the job, I thought he was asking me to go with him.”

“Dani…”

“He said that he needed to focus on his career,” I bite out. “That he wouldn’t be able to give me the time I deserved. He made it sound as if he were doing me some sort of favor.”

It isn’t lost on me that I’m allowing Ezra to hold me a little closer than I probably should, just like it doesn’t escape me that I don’t fight it when one large palm cups the back of my head, pulling me into his chest.

“I’m sorry,” he says simply, his voice soft and full of meaning.

I nod into his suit jacket, not knowing what else there is I can do. “It’s over now,” I mumble against the fabric of his lapel. “I’m over it. I just…Seeing him…it took me off guard.”

“Understandably.”

“You really didn’t have to save me,” I sigh, pulling back to look at him. “I could have handled it.”

Ezra’s mouth turns up at the corner in a lopsided grin, and the sight of it almost steals my breath all over again. “Dani, I have no doubts that there isn’t a single thing on earth that you need saving from, but…” He shrugs one shoulder. “I’m selfish. I couldn’t stand to see you looking sad for another second.”

The shock and the rawness of seeing Grant again begin to ebb away, my heart thudding with a new purpose as the weight of all the changes between Ezra and me that have been happening comes flooding back.

We’re still moving to the quiet music, both of us staring at each other like we don’t know how to look away, and my voice is barely there when it leaves me. “Why?”

“I think you know why, Dani,” he sighs.

I worry that I do, but worse than that—I worry that his reasons might match mine now. I worry about what that means for us.

I turn my face to look at some bland painting of abstract grays and blacks hanging on the wall beside us, willing my cheeks to cool. “I met your mother earlier, by the way.”

Ezra goes still, his feet coming to a halt as we both stop dancing.

“What?”

I frown up at him. “Your mother. I met her.”

“How?”

“I got bored in there, and I started exploring the other rooms, and I…I found her reading in the library.”

Ezra remains still for another beat, finally pulling me back against him and resuming the slow shuffling of feet to the music. “I didn’t know she was down here.”

I remember his mother’s words then, how she had said we’d decided it was better she not attend these things, and I can’t help but wonder if that we includes Ezra.

“Why is she not at the party?”

Ezra lets out a heavy breath. “That’s a…long and complicated story.”

“One you can’t tell me?”

He shakes his head. “One I’m not sure you’d care to hear.”

“And why wouldn’t I?”

His eyes flick to mine, a flash of regret there. “Because you’d have to actually care about me to want to hear all the dirty details of my shitty family.”

His words hit me like a blow, my stomach flipping so hard he might as well have landed a fist there. But it’s not him that has me feeling so bowled over, no, it’s the heavy weight of knowing that he believes I don’t care about him. It’s the uncertainty of not knowing when I started to. Even if only a little.

“I care,” I say after several moments, my voice barely a whisper.

Ezra’s eyes find mine, holding them. “Do you.”

“Don’t make me say it again,” I grumble.

His mouth twitches. “But it’s so nice to hear.”

“Ezra,” I huff.

“It really is a very long story,” he tells me. He looks past me to the ballroom, which is still filled to the brim with people. “One I’m not sure I should be talking about here.”

“Well…” I bite my lip, shrugging. “I mean…we could leave. Surely you’ve networked enough.”

Ezra grins at me. “Are you asking me to get out of here, Dani?”

“I’m telling you that I’m bored of this stupid party, and that you owe me a story.”

“Hm.” His gaze sweeps down my front, heating me. “And where do you propose we run off to?”

“You’re really trying your best to make me tell you to piss off and forget it, huh?”

“Can you blame me for taking advantage? This might be the nicest you’ve ever been to me.”

I roll my eyes. “I’m…nice.”

“Sour Patch, you’re as prickly as a cactus.” And when I tense, he leans in, adding, “But I love that about you.”

Heat tingles over my skin, lighting me up like a live wire. I’m not thinking about Grant at all now, miraculously. I can’t. Not when Ezra is so close, looking at me like he is.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say breathlessly. “Let’s just get out of here.”

The talking is further from my mind now, a steady pulse building between my legs that seems to worsen with every lingering press of Ezra’s hands on my body.

“You’re forgetting one thing,” he says.

I pause. “What?”

“I told you”—he leans in close, his lips barely grazing my ear—“that the next time I had you, it would be in bed. That I would get you for the whole night. That I would do all the things I’ve been dreaming about doing to you.”

A shiver creeps down my spine, and I have to bite back an embarrassing sound.

“Do you remember, Dani?”

I manage to nod, albeit shakily. “I remember.”

“Good.” His fingers flex against my hip, his hand covering mine against his shoulder. “So that just leaves one question, doesn’t it?”

I pull back, peering up at him in confusion. “What?”

His smile is wide and brilliant, and I feel it washing over me; for a moment, all the doubts and worries of my past and my present and even my future are obliterated by the brightness of his smile. He tilts his head to let his forehead rest against mine briefly, and his voice is low, so low that I feel it in my toes when he asks—