“So, Sterling came to my house yesterday,” she said. “After he saw you.”

She knew about that?

As if reading my mind, she followed up with, “Sterling loves to brag about his conquests. Business, romantic, vengeful, any kind of victory. I think he thought I’d be impressed that he’s so thoroughly boxed us in with the photographic evidence of our relationship.”

God. He’s such a tool.

“You have to understand, I knew he’d come here eventually, and I knew that I would tell him I didn’t want to be with him. But I also knew that he wouldn’t accept anything less than a full, face-to-face rejection, and also I felt like I at least owed him dinner, a chance to talk everything over. I mean, we dated for years….”

“Years that he cheated on you,” I muttered.

She looked over at me. The look wasn’t entirely pleasant. “Anyway,” she continued, her voice edged with agitation, “I agreed to drive down to the city and get dinner with him. We ended up talking so late that I fell asleep in his hotel room.”

I didn’t like that detail.

I didn’t like that detail at all.

“But like I said,” she said, “nothing happened. I dozed on his couch until morning and then his driver brought me back home. To you.”

“So he knows now that you’re done with him? He’s leaving?”

She hesitated. “Yes?”

“Is that a question? Are you saying you don’t know for sure?”

Her eyes stayed on the road. “When I left this morning, he said he understood my decision completely. He said he didn’t want me to be with him unwillingly—that it mattered to him how I felt. And so he’d be stepping back.”

I thought of the man I’d met yesterday, of those icy blue eyes and that calculating voice. He didn’t seem like the kind of man who’d step back. He did, however, seem like the kind of man who would lie about stepping back.

“So the pictures he’s taken of us…he went to all that effort to set up a potential blackmailing scheme and he’s just going to give that up?”

She bit her lip, checking over her shoulder and changing lanes again. I liked the way she drove—fast, capable, with a flavor of aggression that never actually translated into anything unsafe. “I don’t know,” she said a bit helplessly. “He seemed so determined and so yeah—it’s hard to imagine him going to all that effort just to leave, but I also don’t think he’d lie about it either.”

“I do,” I said under my breath.

She heard. “Look, Sterling is not a saint, but it’s not fair to demonize him just because he is my ex. Yes, he did bad things, but it’s not like he’s a psychopath. He’s just a spoiled boy who’s never had anyone say no to him. And I honestly don’t think he’ll do anything with those pictures.”

Is she defending him? It felt like she was defending him, and that pissed me off a little.

“Did he offer to return the files to you? Or even to delete them?”

“What? No. But—”

“Then I don’t think he’s planning on going anywhere,” I said, keeping my gaze on the window, where the dusk-covered fields were slowly turning into the sprawl of the city. “He said what he knew you wanted to hear, but this isn’t over, Poppy. It won’t be over for him until he gets what he wants. Which is you.”

Her hand slid over mine, and for a minute, I petulantly thought about ignoring it, about not lacing my fingers through hers, whether to hurt her or to show my disagreement, I wasn’t sure.

God, I was being such a tool.

When I grabbed her hand, I grabbed it tight. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just—it’s like this trident pointed right at my heart. That I might lose you or lose my job—or both.”

“You’re not losing me,” she insisted, glancing over. “And you won’t lose your job. Unless you want to.”

I rested my head against the cool glass of the window. And there it was…the choice. Black and white, night and day, one or the other. Poppy or God.

“Millie knows,” I said out of nowhere.

I felt her hand tense in mine, and there it was again, that weird anger, because why would Millie—awesome, dependable Millie—be more worrisome than Sterling? But I took a breath and then eased it out. I refused to let this latest cascade of events drive a wedge between us.

I wouldn’t allow it.

“She’s not going to tell anyone,” I reassured Poppy. And then I told her about what had happened to me yesterday, ultimately choosing to tell her every single thing, even my ugly, stupid thoughts, because I owed her that. I wanted to owe her that. And really, what did I have to lose? I was this close to losing everything anyway. Might as well be honest.

She listened as I told her everything, about Millie, and about Sterling’s blackmail, and about how I had guessed she was with him even before he texted me, and about all the nasty, jealous feelings currently corkscrewed into my chest, and when I finished, her lips were pressed together in a red line, hiding those teeth I found so strangely sexy, pulling her features into a serious expression that was somehow just as attractive.

“I know we haven’t known each other long,” she said. “But you never have to worry about me cheating on you. It won’t happen. Period. I don’t cheat.”

“I didn’t mean…” I struggled for the right words. “I know you, the real you, and I know you wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. But I also know that Sterling is more than just an ex-boyfriend to you. I know that there’s something between you two that’s old and powerful, and I guess that’s what had me worried, not some imagined weakness in your character.”

“It doesn’t matter how much history is between Sterling and me. I’ll never cheat on you. It’s not in my nature.”

I hoped that was true. I hoped it so much. But it occurred to me that there was no way I could ever be sure that she wouldn’t cheat, there was no warranty for trusting someone you loved and no court where you could sue them if they ended up betraying you. Loving her, choosing to trust her with Sterling, it would make me vulnerable.

But she was already vulnerable, loving a man who wasn’t actually allowed to love her back, so maybe this made us even.

To lighten the mood, I said, “I guess I understand that. Sean and Aiden even have a name for why people are the way you are; they call it the Monogamy Gene.”

“The monogamy gene,” she repeated. “I suppose that’s about right.”

I sat back. Downtown Kansas City came into view, glass and brick monoliths scraping against a lavender sky, the river a steel-gray snake below.

“They also used to joke I had the celibacy gene,” I said. “Although now I’m not so sure.” Streetlights and stoplights flashed across through car, and Poppy deftly maneuvered through the traffic to pull into the heart of the city.

“Maybe it wasn’t the celibacy gene,” I said, more to myself than to her. “Maybe it’s just that I was always waiting for you.”

She sucked in a breath and jerked the car into an alley between two buildings. Before I could ask her what she was doing, she’d put the car in park and was crawling onto my lap, which made my dick perk up with interest.

Her lips met mine with urgency, a hot, determined hunger, and her hands were everywhere—in my hair, on my chest, pulling impatiently at the fly of my jeans.

“I love you,” she breathed, over and over again, and the tension of the drive melted away. “I love you, I love you, I love you. And I’m so sorry for everything today.”

I found her ass under her dress and squeezed, sliding my fingers beneath her thighs to run my fingertips along the crotch of her thong, which was damp.

But before I could delve any further into this interesting new development, she pulled back, breathing hard.

“We have a big night ahead, so I don’t want to ruin it by getting started early,” she said with a smile. “But you don’t know what you do to me when you say things like that.”

“They’re all true,” I whispered to her. “I care about you so fucking much and I just wish—” I pulled her tight to me, her chest in my face, her pussy flat against my denim-clad erection. “I just wish it was like this all the time. You and me. No decisions. No problems. Just…us.”