Emilia wiped her silent tears with the back of her hand and nestled her head in the crook of my shoulder. I let her. I took a deep breath of the fresh air, closing my eyes. I was going to do it.

“After you left Todos Santos, everything got worse. We were no longer in high school, and I was no longer a king. No one to play Defy with anymore, which made my frustration with the world simmer. Especially toward my stepmom and her brother. I wanted to kill Ryler. To fucking end him. I showed up at his house. I didn’t even have to kick the door in. He was in the backyard in his hot tub, relaxing, his eyes shut.”

I told her how I killed him. How I strode nonchalantly toward him, sat on the edge of his hot tub and dropped his phone, which was on the wooden deck, into the water.

The autopsy said Daryl drowned to death in a drug-induced stupor. It was an airtight story. It was also the right one. He had drowned…but I gave him the drugs to put him out.

After I was done, I stilled, not even daring to inhale my next dose of oxygen.

She didn’t stand up and walk away.

She didn’t scream at me.

She didn’t make a sound.

She just tensed next to my body and brushed her hand along my arm, prompting me to continue. I released the breath I was holding in my lungs and did just that.

“Then it was time to deal with Josephine and Dad. The gold-digger deserved to lose what she’d schemed so hard to have. The fact that my dad got sick took care of most of it. My plan for simple. My dad worked himself to death to create a business legacy. All I wanted was to confront him before he died. Let him know I knew all along about my mom and that I was going to get rid of what he’d built, starting with the mansion I hated. ”

“You burned down the house,” she finished gently.

I nodded, my chin digging into her temple. I felt lighter, somehow. I hoped it wasn’t going to bite me in the ass the next time Emilia and I went against each other, which was bound to happen, because that was the way we operated. She jerked her head from my chest and stared at me. And I let her. Because I had nothing to hide anymore.

“You did so many horrible things to avenge your mama,” she whispered. A tear escaped her right eye.

I nodded. I’d have said I was sorry, but that would’ve been a lie she didn’t deserve hearing.

“And you’re telling me this because…?”

“Because I trust you. Because I want to know if there’s still a chance you can know who I am, who I really am, and still…” Don’t say love me, don’t say love me, don’t say love me. “Be with me.”

“I want to be with you,” she confirmed without hesitation, and fuck, it just got a whole lot warmer. “I know that they damaged you, and I still want you. I don’t even want to fix you. I just want you as you are. Broken. Misunderstood. Jerk. I want the real version, the dark version, the one who made me the saddest I’ve ever been in my life, but also the happiest.”

Now was the time.

I pressed my lips against hers, and they were warm, and they were right, and they were mine. We kissed under the cherry blossom tree until I felt our lips were seconds from cracking before she pulled away, blinking at me. I got up and offered her my hand.

She took it.

She fucking took it.

Knowing what I’d done, she was still there. What’s more, she was still strong. That was the true beauty about this girl. She never cowered. She always stood tall and thought for herself, knowing what was right and what was wrong in her universe. Always.

That’s what Pink said all those years ago. That we weren’t above the law, but not beneath it either.

There were people around us. Cycling and setting up picnics, taking pictures, and walking their dogs. The place was buzzing with life, but I had just finished talking to her about the death I’d caused. I knew she still had a question in mind, so I waited, allowing her to voice it.

“What are you going to do about Josephine?” Her eyes jerked to me, and I smiled.

“I’m going to punish her where it hurts. I’m going to take her money.”

It was pretty amazing how fast six months could pass. I was in no position to talk shit about Dean because he stayed true to his word, sticking to LA and even helping Emilia’s parents settle in while I was courting their daughter.

Yes, that’s right, courting.

I had no idea how we went from fucking in my office in every position known to man to me holding her bag while I escorted her from the subway to her shitty apartment every night, but it happened. I asked her if she wanted to move in with me, along with Rosie, back to their old apartment in Manhattan, the one I occupied now. I had more than enough space for the three of us, but after she said no, I never brought the subject up again.

We were going to do things her way. I got it. Her way sucked, but I needed to start learning how to play other people’s games if I ever wanted something meaningful.

We didn’t explicitly say out loud that we were dating, but we certainly weren’t fucking, and still, we saw each other every day. It went without saying that our weekends were booked, and we spent them together. Rosie tagged along more often than I would have liked, but I bit the bullet. We went to museums and to the movies. We took walks and even went to Coney Island once. Rosie brought a date along when that happened—a greasy guy named Hal—so I had a few hours to smuggle Emilia behind a building and make out with her until she had concrete burns all over her back from when I grinded against her.

Rosie kept teasing me about the Hamptons, asking what kind of rich person I was if I didn’t have a house there, until finally I caved and rented a place for the weekend, but not before I ran the idea past Emilia’s baby sister and told her that if she was not bringing Hal along, I’d be dumping her sorry ass on the road on the way to the beach house I’d leased.

The week before the beach trip, we visited the cherry blossom tree again. The flowers had long died by then, which was kind of depressing to think about, I guess. Worse, spring was almost over, and I knew I was running out of time.

That night we finally got into bed again, and it was nothing like our first times.

Rosie needed the apartment in the Bronx because her boyfriend was sleeping over at theirs. A perfect opportunity for me. I asked Emilia if she wanted to sleep at my place and she said yes. I didn’t arrange a fancy candlelit dinner or get her flowers because that would’ve been lying, and I promised myself I wasn’t gonna lie to her. But I did order us some Vietnamese from that place she liked and bought some booze. She came over after work and kicked off her high heels—lemon yellow with green dots—muttering something about how she was five seconds from caving and pairing sneakers with dresses like the rest of the female lawyers and accountants of NYC.

I grinned and poured her a glass of wine. I was already in my jeans and T-shirt. “Mmm, women in suits and sneakers. The antidote to an erection.”

She laughed and threw one of the heels at me playfully, purposely missing me by a few feet. I cocked an eyebrow, striding over to her and handing her one of the full glasses of wine.

“You’re aggressive lately. Must be all that sexual tension.” Without giving her the option for a comeback, I turned around and started opening takeout boxes, fixing us our plates.

She took a sip of the wine and I felt her eyes on my body. “How are you sleeping these days, Vic?” Her tone was sweet and seductive.

“Like a fucking baby. Thanks for asking.”

I’d somehow managed to snag some more planned sleep recently, mainly because I no longer had to worry about everything. Jo was my only loose end, and I was going to deal with her soon enough. Everything else was running smoothly. I slept every other night, which was huge progress. I don’t know how it’d happened. Maybe it was the fact that I had someone by my side now.

She tilted her head slightly and stared at me almost dreamily, and I loved her for it.

Shit. I did.

She untangled my fingers from my glass of wine and placed it on the kitchen island as she linked her arms around my neck, and that’s when I realized that all this time, all this fucking time I was chasing her, I was actually loving her.

I loved her when I hated her.

And I loved her when I didn’t want anything to do with her.

I was so crazy about her, the lines had blurred together. Feelings were mixed, emotions twisted together.

I was stealing her pens and pencils, when actually, I was desperate for her words.

All of them. Every letter and syllable. Every silly doodle.

It was clear to me then, in a generic white kitchen I didn’t particularly like, in a city I hated, in an apartment I was supposed to vacate in three weeks’ time, that I was in love.

A love that was worn and old, but still burning.

“Ask me what I want again,” I said softly, and she grinned, pressing her lips to my chest through my tee.

“What do you want?” she murmured. Her hair smelled fantastic. Like flowers and how my fucking pillow was going to smell tonight.

“Nothing. I’m done wanting things. I have everything I need now. Ask me how I feel.”

“How do you feel?”

“In love.” I breathed hard, burying my face in her hair. “I feel in love, and it’s you that I love. So fucking much.”

We didn’t eat our dinner. Instead, I carried her to my new bed, one that Dean had never slept in, and placed her on the mattress, on her stomach, watching her heart-shaped naked ass, and all that purple hair fanning her back and my pillows. I leaned forward, kissing her tattoo and dipping my hand between her legs, running a finger over her slit. She shivered in pleasure, but waited, motionless.