He shook his head, looking around the room, which was the exact same way as it had been the last time he’d been here, a month before Diana had died.

“Because I needed to know that you still suffered. Still surrounded yourself with everything that she’d put here.” He pointed a shaking finger at me, and I felt it like a knife in my chest. “You were the reason she was out on the road that night. You are the reason some drunk asshole wrapped her car around a tree, because you didn’t feel safe driving home after your three pussy-ass beers. Why she was stuck in that car until she bled out. So I need to know that you still feel like shit. The same way I do.”

Every word spat from his mouth felt like flames licking up my skin. I kept every thought of that night so far from my memory, that being thrust into it singed every part of me.

“And you really think I wouldn’t?” I whispered, voice cracking. “I loved her. You know I loved her. And she would have been home safe if it hadn’t been for me. I don’t need you coming here, after all these years to remind me of that.”

We stared at each other, the violence in his eyes just making me feel so incredibly tired. So bone-deep exhausted that I wanted to curl into myself and not come out for weeks.

“I know you don’t need it,” he finally said. Then he pointed at his own chest. “But maybe I do.”

“Then take your issues somewhere else. I’m not going to offer up a place for you to lay it down.”

There was second where he looked like he might relax. But then his eyes narrowed in on the driveway. I turned to look and cursed under my breath when I saw Adele walking up toward the house with a smile on her face.

“I need you to leave.”

He laughed. That fucker just laughed. “And why the hell should I?”

“Because I don’t need her involved in this. Nobody but you is hanging on to this anger over Diana. And it’s not her fault,” I said, pointing back at where Adele was nearing the door. The locked door, thank God. “If she walks in while you’re still here, then we’re going to have a problem.”

We stared at each other, neither of us moving while Adele tried the door. Then knocked.

“Nathan? Can you let me in?”

“Please, Elias,” I ground out. And the look at utter satisfaction that covered his face made me feel sick to my stomach.

“How long? Just answer me that. Just tell me how it took before you moved on.”

She knocked again, a little harder, a little more insistent. “Nathan?”

No part of me wanted to answer his question. Not a single one. He’d use it against me somehow, even if it wasn’t today. “Four years. I waited over four years before I touched another woman. And she’s the only one that I have.”

Elias nodded, and I couldn’t read the look in his eyes even if I wanted to. He could cloak every genuine feeling from his face, it was one of his best gifts. The only reason I knew he believed me is because no man would want to admit to being that pathetic. Being celibate for that long. “I’ll show myself out the back.”

“You remember how to get out?”

Then he smiled, without a trace of humor in it, showing all his stark white teeth against the dark hair of his beard. “I remember everything, Easton. Everything.”

I let out a slow breath when he turned and walked through the kitchen, finally pulling it back in when the back door slammed shut so hard that the windows rattled.

Dick.

I still felt shaken when I opened the door for Adele, but she was smiling so big that she didn’t even notice. She just threw herself into my arms as soon as the door closed behind her, hoisting her legs up and around my waist.

“Woah,” I said, feeling calmed by her tactile greeting and her wide smile. It was one I didn’t see on her often, such a broad, genuinely happy grin. “Someone’s having a good day.”

Adele nodded, leaning in to give me a sweet, close-mouthed kiss. “I am.”

I braced one arm under her ass, and smoothed the other hand up her back until it tangled in the edges of her hair. Her cold hands cupped my face and we stared at each other. After just looking at Elias, wondering how anyone could decipher his emotions, it was such a stark relief to see everything in Adele’s emerald eyes.

They glowed. She glowed.

“I’m very glad you’re here right now,” I said, though the words were such a simplistic statement of the overwhelming tidal wave of emotions raging through me. She smiled again, and peppered tiny kisses all over my face, lingering on my lips after she’d covered every other inch she could reach.

“I am too, Professor Easton. Now, take me to bed.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Hooking a hand in the front of his jeans, I pulled him up the stairs, feeling high on my decision. Everything would be okay. How could it not be, when I had Nathan looking at me like I was something—someone—powerful? He made me feel invincible. His blue eyes were so warm, his smile cutting into his cheeks so deeply; it was a heady feeling, to know I’d made him happy merely with my presence.

Something clicked in my heart, a kind of unlocking, and I knew with complete certainty that I’d made the right decision, for me … for us.

“Mm,” he said, holding me closely at the threshold to his bedroom. “You smell fucking amazing. All the time.”

I leaned into him, relishing his warmth as the cold made my teeth chatter. “Even when I reek of coffee beans?”

“Especially when you reek of coffee beans.” He pulled back and placed a kiss to my lips. “You’re an aphrodisiac all by yourself.” He placed another kiss, softer this time. “I’m glad you’re here.”

My heart was putty in his hands. The way he said the simplest things shouldn’t have affected me so deeply, but they did.

I placed my hands on his neck and he let out a breath. “Your hands are freezing. Come, let’s shower.”

While he turned the water to warm, I stripped out of my coat and leggings, shivering a little when my bare feet touched the cold tile. When he turned back around, I grasped his shirt and pulled it from his waistband, unbuttoning all the way up. As more of his chest came into view, I placed soft kisses along his skin until the shirt was completely undone and he grabbed my face, pressing his lips fully on mine. He let out a sigh and unsnapped my bra before pulling me with him into the shower.

“Come here.” He grasped my hands in his and pulled me close, skin to skin, under the shower head. “Put your arms around me, warm up.” The water beat down on us and I let out a sigh at the welcome warmth of it. Wrapping my arms around him, he squeezed me tightly. I felt the warming down to my bones, wondered if I would turn to jelly just by him holding me so fiercely.

The water poured from the showerhead over us and I became dimly aware of Nathan’s hand running down my hair soothingly. How had he known I’d needed this? After making such a big decision, I needed to be held like this, to feel myself just existing in the moment with Nathan. Despite our nakedness, there was nothing sexual about this moment. It was just us, holding one another, being what we both needed. The water slid in rivulets over my face, my closed eyes, falling into the little space that existed between our bodies. Neither of us moved, content to just be.

That’s how I knew what I felt for Nathan wasn’t merely lust. Lust was blind to what we desired most: an emotional connection. And any misgivings I had about changing my major were eliminated with each drop of water down the drain. Whatever this was, it was worth exploring. I didn’t want Nathan to be my secret anymore. I pressed my lips into his shoulder and felt his at my forehead. Nothing could have dragged me from his embrace in that moment.