Quan tilted his head to the side. “My brother used to get overstimulated just like this. He’s autistic.”

Her chest constricted at his words. She shouldn’t have used the word overstimulated. Most people didn’t use it. Why would they? When he narrowed his eyes, she could almost see the connections being made in his mind, the question forming there.

She held her breath and hoped he wouldn’t ask. She could withhold the truth, but she’d never learned how to lie.

“Are you?”

Her shoulders slumped, and her throat burned with shame. She made herself nod.

“Michael doesn’t know, does he? He never would’ve taken you here if he knew. You should tell him.”

All she could do was shake her head. Anytime people learned about her disorder, they started walking on eggshells around her. It strained the relationship until they found a way to leave. She never told people anymore. Apparently, that wasn’t enough to keep some from figuring it out on their own.

“Can I borrow a hundred dollars from you, please? I want to go home.” And her credit card was inside.

“You’re going to leave? Michael’s probably looking for you.”

She doubted that. He’d been busy. As she pushed herself to her feet, she marveled at the disconnect between her body and her mind. How could her limbs still follow orders when her head felt so tired and hollow? “I promise I’ll pay you back.”

“Is this because that chick kissed him? I hope you saw Michael trying to peel her off. He sucks at protecting himself from women.”

Hope sparked, bright and foolish. “Really?”

The door opened, and a swift techno beat radiated from the doorway.

“There you are.” Michael stepped outside, and the door shut behind him, silencing the music. His gaze jumped from her to Quan and back again. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

“I needed some fresh air.”

Quan’s brow furrowed like he wanted to speak, and Stella held her breath.

Don’t tell him. Don’t tell him. Don’t tell him.

He’d change. Everything would change. And she didn’t want that to happen yet.

“She was trying to borrow cab fare from me. She saw you and that blonde necking and wanted to run,” Quan said.

Her stomach didn’t know if it should relax or knot tighter at his words. He made her sound emotional and possessive. She wished it weren’t true.

“You were going to leave? Just like that?” Michael asked, his voice tinged with disbelief.

She stared down at the pavement. “I thought you and her—that you—”

“No. With you right there? Give me some credit, will you? God, Stella.”

He gripped her waist and pulled her against him. His smell, his arms tight around her, his solid presence. Heaven. She shut her eyes and sagged against him.

“Do you want to go back in?” he asked.

“No.” Adrenaline shot through her body, tightening every muscle that had relaxed in his embrace. As an afterthought, she added, “Please.”

“Let’s go home, then.”

{ CHAP+ER }

11

Stella was reserved as they walked the few blocks back to her white Model S. Several times, Michael caught her massaging her temples, but when he asked if she had a headache, her response was an unintelligible mumble. He would have thought she was doing the silent martyr act in retribution for his supposed cheating, but that didn’t seem her style.

No, her style was leaving him without a single word. When Quan had told him she wanted to abandon him at the club, it’d sucker-punched Michael in the gut. The last person to leave him had been his dad. But where Michael’s dad had left him with an enormous mess to clean up, Stella had planned to leave him with her car and her credit card. Who did that?

Even worse, he hadn’t deserved it. Either time.

Tonight, he’d been busy preventing his crazy ex-client from making an enormous scene in front of Stella. Aliza was a true diva and loved drama in all forms. Now that she’d finally succeeded in divorcing her millionaire husband—and taking half of his net worth—she wanted Michael back. She was willing to pay whatever it took.

She refused to accept that Michael would rather fuck his way through splintered driftwood than return to her bed. She’d detained him for long minutes, tossing extravagant numbers at him before plastering her mouth to his.

He would forever associate the taste of cinnamon gum, cigarettes, and whiskey with Aliza.

So different from Stella, who tasted like . . . mint chocolate chip ice cream.

They piled into her car, and she activated the seat warmer, sank against the backrest, and stared out the window, absently tapping her fingers on her knees. He turned the radio on to break the silence, but she promptly turned it back off. Her fingers resumed their tapping. It was hypnotic but a little annoying.

He sent her a pointed look, but she didn’t notice.

After he took them out of the city and merged into the light traffic on 101S, he broke down and said, “When you do that finger tapping, are you playing a song? Like on the piano?”

She stopped tapping her fingers and sat on her hands. “It’s Debussy’s Arabesque. I really like the combination of triplets and eighth notes.”

“So you play?” When he’d picked her up from her downtown Palo Alto house, it had been impossible to miss the black grand piano dominating her otherwise empty living room. If she was artistically talented on top of being smart, successful, and gorgeous, she was officially his dream woman in the flesh. And so far out of his league as to be laughable.

Even if he didn’t have all the shit associated with his dad dangling between them, he had almost nothing a girl like her could want. There was his face and his body, but anyone could have that if they paid enough. Maybe she would have been attracted to the old him, the man who had been free to pursue his passions. There’d been a lot going for that guy. Michael barely knew him anymore.

“I do,” Stella said. “I started playing before I could speak.”

He arched his eyebrows. Apparently, in addition to being his dream woman, she was also Mozart.

“That’s not as impressive as it sounds,” she said with a wry lift of her lips. “I was a late speaker.”

“I have a hard time picturing that. You seem so perfect to me.”

She bowed her head and released a heavy breath, but when he began to ask her what was wrong, the slow minivan in front of him caught his attention. He switched lanes and accelerated soundlessly past it. Smooth as buttah. He loved fast cars.

But thinking about cars always reminded him of his current car, a shiny black BMW M3, and how he’d gotten it.

“She’s my crazy ex-client,” he said.

He felt the weight of Stella’s gaze on the side of his face. “The woman in the club.”

“Yes.”

She lifted a hand toward the bridge of her nose. When she couldn’t adjust her glasses, she clasped her neck instead. “Did you like kissing her?”

“I didn’t kiss her. She kissed me. But no, I didn’t like it.”

“Can you be very honest and answer one question for me?”

This was going to be interesting. “Yes.”