The sun was high in the sky before we were finally dressed and I had a pot of coffee brewing on the wood stove. Even after our bodies were spent, we had shared the huge, old claw foot tub. She had rested in my arms, soft and satisfied, as I’d bathed her body and washed her hair. I’d dried her gently, as content to touch her with simple tenderness as with passion. What we’d shared in the night had redefined the limits of desire and connection. But caring for her so sweetly had been the most intimate experience of my entire life.

We took our steaming mugs outside. In spite of the lateness of the day, the breeze was cool. I sat down in one of the wide, wooden chairs and drew her into my lap, wrapping her against me. She fit into the shelter of my body and nothing had ever felt so safe… so perfect. She sighed, and turned her face up to mine. “I love you, Chase,” she whispered. “I wish we could stay here… just like this, forever…”

“I know,” I said, taking her fingertips into my mouth, “and I love you, Emi. No matter where we go from here… know that. You’ve given me back something I thought was gone forever. Something inside me that I didn’t even believe in anymore.

But we need to talk. You have a right to know what you’re getting into, about the things that could come out when I go public. There’ll be consequences, Emi, of being linked to someone like me. Details from the past… about the women.” I frowned, sick at the thought. “I need to talk to Amelia, too. And my father. They have to hear it from me.”

“The way I need to talk to Gran,” she said, turning in my arms to face me. “We both have truths to tell, Chase. I haven’t been really honest with her in my whole life. Or with myself.

I don’t mind taking care of her. And I’m grateful she was there when my mom and dad died. But I’m a grown woman now, and I have the right to live my life by my rules, not hers… Even if she doesn’t see me as her good girl anymore. She used love to control me,” she said. “And she took it away when I didn’t obey.”

I nodded, quiet and thoughtful, thinking of every time my father had withdrawn his love… every fucking time I’d failed to meet his standards. I took Emi’s face in my hands and kissed her, slowly… kindly.

“Tell me anything you need to,” she said, brushing her nose against mine. “But the past is the past, and I believe in your heart, Chase. Whatever happened, I can’t believe you ever hurt any woman intentionally. No matter how you’ve been blaming yourself… it just isn’t in you. You’ve been Amelia’s rock all her life, and you’re here for me now.” She reached up and smoothed my hair and a wave of love and need washed over me. “Tell me if you want, but nothing can change how I feel now.”

It was well into evening by the time I was finally done. I’d spilled out the entire truth, my whole past, from Anna to the moment I’d laid my eyes on her. I left nothing out, and for the first time in forever, I felt completely unburdened.

We sat in front of the stone fireplace, watching the fire burn. The logs crackled and shifted… sending out a burst of sparks and thin trails of lifting smoke. She had moved against me, sliding down until her head rested in my lap as she listened. She looked up at me as I continued to stare into the fire.

“I think you’re wrong,” she said, twining her fingers with mine. “I think you’ve felt so guilty for so long that you may be jumping the gun by going to the press.”

“But it was wrong. I was wrong. And I have to make this right somehow. Not just for me… but for us.”

She sat up, facing me. “You had a lot of money, a lot of power at a very early age, Chase. And you reacted to having your heart broken. But you weren’t cruel. And you weren’t as selfish as you think.” She made me meet her eyes. “In the year since you stopped being part of the game, has one single woman come forward to complain about how you treated her?”

“No…”

“And in all those years, there were only five?”

“Yes, but…”

“And they liked the excitement just as much as you did?”

“It never would have happened if they hadn’t,” I said. “But I didn’t love a single one of them.”

“And, god help them, they didn’t love you either,” she said, laughing softly. “Lucky for me…”

She put her hands on my shoulders, smiling. “Did you ever stop to think that they might have enjoyed the fun of it too, Chase? All this time you’ve been seeing yourself like you were no different from Sutton, but you are,” she said. “He preys on women to exploit them, but you said yourself, you already knew the women you were with… you’d already been friendly with them. They weren’t strangers you seduced. They were just looking for fun, for an exciting hook-up…

None of them ever came to you for pay-offs. You’ve been punishing yourself all this time for something Sutton’s guilty of. But not you, Chase. Not you.”

“But I created the game in the first place,” I said, almost afraid to feel the hope she was offering.

“And if you need to make that right somehow, that’s good,” she said, running her hands around the back of my neck. I felt her fingers twine together. “But don’t you think that privately might be better than publically?” she asked, “For everyone involved?” I nodded slowly, taking her meaning.

“But I still have to stop Sutton,” I said. “I’ve been out all this time, but it still hasn’t been enough to end the game… I think the few who’re left would stop too, if it wasn’t for him. But you saw that party. He doesn’t intend to end it until he’s driven himself and our company’s reputation into the ground.” I ran my hands down her shoulders, down her arms, caressing her skin. “It needs to end because it isn’t right. The bets… the deception.

No woman should ever be treated that way.” I pressed my forehead into hers, squeezing my eyes shut as her hands moved up my back.

There was so much ahead of us. And so many things we both had to make right. There was her family and mine. My past, and the uncertainty of the future. But as I took her into my arms, and felt the melting warmth of her body and her love, I pushed it all aside. I stripped her gently and thoroughly, and myself with less patience. For one more night, there would be nothing but the two of us. She laid back, opening herself to welcome me inside. And I moved over her, seeking and finding

sweet absolution, in her arms.